Pacman Tadpole Setup

[monster]

Hi, I copied this from a great website called anapsid and thought it could help you out abit on top of what Jason said.

( Tadpole management is very time consuming. The tadpoles are total carnivorous, and can be raised on live tubifex worms. They will also readily eat each other, and there are two ways of dealing with this. The first is to place each tadpole into its own small jar, and the other is to place all the tadpoles into a large tank of water that is filled with masses of floating plants (real or plastic). Food can then be placed on the floor of the tank and the tadpoles will swim down, feed, and then swim back up to hide in the plants. Both methods require labor. The first involves changing dozens of individual jars to keep the water clean, and the other involves morning and evening siphoning of the large tadpole tank. I prefer the large-tank method myself, even though you may loose an occasional tadpole to cannibalism.
The tadpoles will grow rapidly, and after about a month, they should begin transforming into little frogs. They'll need a place to haul out of the water at this point and, once again, you will be faced with a husbandry decision. If kept together in large numbers, almost every day you will find frogs with siblings' hind legs sticking out of their mouths. The other alternative is to place each frog into its own individual plastic cup. The little frogs are easy to feed, they will eat anything that moves, such as crickets, mealworms, other frogs, small goldfish, or your fingers. They will grow quite rapidly. Horned frogs are really fun to breed, but be prepared to spend a fair amount of time on your project in order to succeed.)

And Jason I know what you mean about parents not doing much educational wise with there kids these days, that's why im so glad my kids are active and into all kind of sports and have a very high interest in our frogs, my 8 year old always ask to bring them to school.

[Radical Ribbits]

Thanks Cory that helps. Still not sure about what temp. They should be held at? Since my kids will be involved I would like to try my best to reduce any losses. Death is part of nature and they understand that, but we would like to practice the best husbandry we can! So, any info that can help us succeed would be great!

[jasonm96]

Probably not a must but it will help with water quality. A really good book that covers breeding, raising tadpoles is AVS Chacoan Horned Frogs, if you want the best results I'd recommend you purchase that as it's wrote by one of the first to breed the Cranwell's horned frog in captivity and is very detailed unlike most other books I've came across.

Water temp for the tadpoles should be in the high 70 to low 80s F, basically what they frogs will need.

It's not about death, allowing the froglets to eat eachother (within reason) could prove quite important for the best development as it will be a huge calcium boost with the bones and what would probably happen in the wild. Many have been raised individually to prevent this and turned out fine, I'm just saying if it does happen it's nothing to feel bad about as it's healthy for them and probably perfectly natural, so maybe the best husbandry depending on how you look at it

[Radical Ribbits]

Thanks so much! I will definately check into that book. Always looking for a good book!

[jasonm96]

No problem It's a good interesting read and covers other species as well. I've purchased two other books on Horned frogs and they've been bad reads, outdated husbandry and more like a child's book than anything, so be careful if you purchase any others. That one I recommended is the only one directly on Horned frogs that is good that I know of IMO, however Frogs and Toads by Devin Edmonds includes their care but it's only a small section of the book, so not as in depth but otherwise good