Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[alane]

Egg, mid to late development.


A tiny little free tadpole. 1cm head to tail.

[Froggie85]

This is exciting . I wish I could have babies I dont understand why I have not yet . There temp is perfect! SO CUTE!!! im jelly

[alane]

The tadpoles in the satellite tank are not doing as well as the ones in the adult tank. I believe this is because the mosquito fish were harassing them and nipping at their tails. At least one tadpole died, some have nips out of their tail. I removed the mosquito fish and put them back into their outside pond, where they came from. The tadpoles and eggs in the satellite tank are now all alone.

The tadpoles in the adult tank are doing well. The first group that hatched out appears to be scavenging and eating, and are visibly larger merely 24 hours later. The second group of eggs has hatched, and the first set of tadpoles is twice the size of the second set already. The second set of eggs were more numerous, all fertile with very few or no failures during growth, and smaller. There appears to have been a very minor third egg laying as well, just a few. When an egg fails during development, development stops and it turns cloudy.

The better tadpole development in the adult tank may be a result of simply having a better environment to live in; many more places to hide, lots of food, no other animals picking on them.

It's hard to believe that these things are gonna turn into fire belly toads. I wonder at what point do they turn green and become cute. I'll be sure to post photos.

[alane]

This is one of the most mature tadpoles, posing on the glass for me. Check out the video on YouTube, below.

They have a sucker mouth and eat on almost any surface. They love algae.
You can see the beating heart in the video quite clearly.
And it's mostly intestines! Eats poops and grows 24-7.



Video of tadpole. A mouth, a heart, a tail, and a lot of intestines with food.
https://youtu.be/oy6N-7Ii41s

[privet01]

I'm impressed. No wonder so many have to be hatched for a few to make it in nature. They are just a snack waiting for bigger things to come snap them up.

[alane]

My tank has rather a lot of activity now. One would _never_ throw this many fishes into a tank this size. But now i've got a whole bunch of little tadpole swimmers that are cleaning the tank out and growing like weeds.

I'm glad I chose to put some sort of media on the bottom of the tank. I chose dark blue glass pellets. This apparently gives me just a ton of hidey-holes that collect food as well as provide a favored shelter for tadpoles. It is also a good background to view cherry shrimp.
I suspect the cherry shrimp are bummed at this point to see so many tadpoles invading the place.

One odd behavior. Some of them will race to the top, take a gulp of air, then race back down to the bottom. They don't have lungs yet. I wonder why some of them do that?

Very few of the first generation of eggs survived, but that handful of tadpoles are huge compared to the main population.
There are just a few eggs left to hatch of the third clutch but they will. The second, most numerous clutch hatched with almost 100% viability.

Fascinating to watch.

[alane]

I had to remove the reptile waterfall from the tank. It was trouble for two reasons:

1) It is a death trap for fast growing animals. Tadpoles go into the intake holes, eat on the filter, and grow until they can no longer get back out.
2) It's a snail haven.

Fortunately, I caught it early and most of the tadpoles that had been captured by this thing were still alive and doing well. I believe I saw three dead and maybe twenty live. The bigger they are, the more likely they are to survive stuff like this, it seems.

I noticed the problem because the pump inside of the waterfall started sucking air. So many critters had gotten into it, that it's filter was no longer working well.

The remaining water intake is covered in plenty of filter media material, so the water flow is very slow and will not disturb even the smallest of critters. Also this intake serves as a prime feeding ground.

All of the tadpoles are in 24-7 eat/poop mode. The biggest are about 25mm long now. like a flattened grayish jellybean with a tail.

[Whitestree frog]

I would suggest giving them to pet store if u dont want them but you might want to keep a few. However if the adults start eating them which i dont think they will, you should remove the babies not the adults. figure out a safe way. also that wold mean you need a smaller second tank because adults need more space then babies. You could also try putting them up for sale on this website in the for sale section. but if u do you should add where to get them because shipping frogs = bad idea.

[alane]

I must have a hundred toadlets by now of all sizes. Just dumped a thousand flies into the tank. Somehow the water quality is still good. And the adults are still laying eggs. Sheesh.

The mortality rate is very low as I have not seen a single dead toad.

I'm not going to be feeding the new tadpoles as I did the old. It's just too much. I almost killed my bio-filters when I put 5 pounds of spinach in the tank to feed the first batch (not all at once obviously but still, that's a lot of spinach).

They will unfortunately have to 'fend' and won't be as large or healthy as the first.

The largest toadlets are now about a quarter of the size of an adult and their bellies are starting to turn orange. They start out white.

Boy am I greeted enthusiastically when I come by. Food on their minds.

[alane]

Developing eggs, and a cherry shrimp in the corner...



the cherry shrimp will pick over the eggs and maybe eat something stuck to them, but they don't harm the eggs at all.