Tadpole Diary

[elly]

It should be fun to watch them morph. Hope you keep us updated.

[LilyPad]

I am planning to We have a big range in development right now. Some have their back legs starting to poke out and yet we found a tiny bitty newly hatched tad in the tank last night. So there must have been an egg mixed in with them that I didn't notice because the water they were in was pretty mucky.

[LilyPad]

It's been 1 week since we got the toad tads and there have been some big changes already! All of the toads have some sort of legs developing and some are getting pretty big legs already. We also must have gotten an egg mixed in with them, because there is an itty bitty teeny tadpole darting around the tank. It will be fun to watch him grow from that tiny stage!

13282683_10153514730226976_1892172847_o by A H, on Flickr

13282779_10153514730271976_489129468_o by A H, on Flickr

13320999_10153514730986976_708527830_o by A H, on Flickr

We also acquired some more mystery tadpoles from the pond behind our house. It was the only thing we could find other than more toad tadpoles.

13321057_10153514730131976_776552581_o by A H, on Flickr

13313460_10153514730021976_1353126248_o by A H, on Flickr

13282844_10153515494291976_728013484_o by A H, on Flickr

13275515_10153514729986976_1696325768_o by A H, on Flickr

13275257_10153514730166976_1066782875_o by A H, on Flickr

[elly]

I'll guess that the mysterytads might be gray tree frogs because of the speckling. But I have no way of knowing for sure.

[LilyPad]

I am hoping so but wasn't sure because their dorsal fin is a little low. I'm thinking possibly chorus frogs or wood frogs. Which would be weird because I have never seen them in the area but not impossible. It's interesting to watch them because their behaviour is totally different than the toads. The toads hang out at the bottom of the tank and aggressively start eating as soon as the food is dumped in. These guys hang out on the anubias, the salvinia roots, or the walls of the tank. They kind of meander down to the food as they please.

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

I'm thinking those mystery tadpoles may be chorus frogs, they remind me of some Upland chorus frog tadpoles I've seen

[LilyPad]

I was thinking that too, however, I think they're getting too big to be chorus frogs. They are already bigger than the toad tadpoles with not even a hint of legs yet. The dark spots are also getting darker and some and still nonexistent on others. We may have 2 different kinds. It will be interesting!

As for the toads, they are growing so quickly! Over the weekend, the house got pretty hot (before I caved and turned on the a/c last night) so I was keeping the lights turned off on all the tanks. When it finally cooled down last night, I turned the lights on the tadpole tank to do a water change, and found this! -

20160530_213714 by A H, on Flickr

We now have 4 toad tadpoles moved over to the grow out container. Once their tails are absorbed and I'm sure they're eating, I'll move them over to a bigger tank with substrate that has been seeded with springtails and isopods.

They are quick little suckers though! They're not easy to catch. I had no idea they would morph so quickly. When we got them, not even 2 weeks ago, they had the tiniest speck of back legs and now they're already just about ready to come out of the water. I have a feeling that more will have front legs tonight because they had some pretty good sized lumps on their front end.