Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[alane]

Well, the heat wave is over. Adding ice to the tank only reduces the temperature for under one hour, then it goes right back up.

The hottest temperature I saw was 87 degrees. It stayed at that temperature for 36 hours. I was very worried. Everything I did...ice and water changes...worked for a bit, but it went right back to 87F. Toadlets are stupid about rafting on ice cubes. The ones that do end up in quite a torpor.
There is no direct sunlight involved so the water temp was 87F...outside of the water, in the breeze of the fan, I suspect it is much cooler for them.

Froggies did not even lose their appetite or change their cute behavior in any way.

I've left the top of the tank open with a fan blowing. Lost a whole gallon of water to evaporation.

I don't think I need a chiller after all.

[alane]

The cherry shrimp are thriving in this tank. They appear to be able to handle FBT water in the long term.

But not everything can...I tried a dwarf crayfish...those did not last long at all.

I added some assassin snails to try and cope with an outbreak of other nuisance snails...the assassin snails cannot survive very long in a Fire Belly Toad tank; they are all dead after two months. The nuisance snail is still there, but in lower numbers.

So...
Mosquito fish and cherry shrimp and some sort of snail that I got from petsmart - no problem in an FBT tank
Assassin snails or dwarf crayfish - soon dead

It's hit and miss. I feel like Doctor Frankenstein, mixing creatures from around the world in my experimental tank.

[sambal]

With great interest I have read this thread. It was very entertaining to follow your whole proces. Even more so because end of April my own toads also surprised me with eggs. I would be very curious to see how yours look like now, would it be possible to post some more photos?
Here some videos of mine because for some reason I cannot upload any images, jpg or png, does anyone else experience this problem too?



And a more explicit one...

[alane]

Just added a chiller to my frog tank. Now, instead of a hot ambient temperature, close to a dangerous temperature...

it's whatever I want. 74F is what it is now.

one of my frogs, over-night, turned a bright lime green in response. they do seem more active at this temperature.

and I no longer have to worry about heat waves and plopping ice into the tank.

i need to 'focus' on pictures next.


that twerking video is hilarious!

[alane]

The chiller works great. The frogs are very happy. The males are calling loudly and many batches of eggs have been laid in the past week.

But the interesting thing is...the eggs are 0% viable. Earlier in the season it was closer to 100%. And now? Every single one of them fails.

I am not complaining. I don't need any more toadlets. But it is a mystery and i'd like to know why.

I dealt with a worm issue in my tank by adding a dose of fenbenzadole. The worms, I believe, came from my outdoor pond. Planaria + two other species of filament like worms. Five days later, all gone. Very effective and targeted medicine.

I don't know if that has anything to do with the egg issue. I have added a bunch of activated charcoal to my filter system to try and absorb any problem chemicals in the water. A basic test kit says my water is fine...no ammonia, no nitrite, 7.6 pH. And lots of nitrates, but that is typical for a tank loaded with frogs.

The toadlets are growing enough such that the adults are starting to interact with them. I saw one adult grab a toadlet. More like wrapped completely around it, lol. Toadlet Did Not Want This and was able to swim away eventually, for they are squishy escape artists and hard to hold for long. Such is the life of a frog I guess.

The chiller is a huge load off of my mind. I can go on vacation and not worry about a stinking hot pool of death when I come back home.

[alane]

well, i'm being lazy on the photos. i need to spend some time to clean up the glass on my tank. good lord my water is hard.

My frogs lay eggs about every week. But the last few months, all eggs have been sterile. i do not know why. could be the high temperatures i had before the chiller was added. could be a toxin i cannot detect with my test kit. could be a sterile frog.

i was concerned that there was a water quality issue even though a basic test kit showed no problems.
in response to the dead eggs i've been getting, I added some activated charcoal and some "de-nitrate" to my filter.

one week later...i have live eggs...i expect to get some 'clinger' tadpoles this evening as they hatch out. my tank has developed enough algae that i suspect they will have plenty to eat and i look forward to getting the algae cleaned up in a natural manner.

I do not know whether or not there was a water quality issue. A frog was either shooting blanks, or I had something in the water that did not show up on the test kit...and was removed by the activated charcoal.

either way, i'm down to about 30 froggies. most of them are originals from the first batch of eggs. they are 1/3rd the size of the adults and would probably develop faster if I fed them at a maximum rate. many of the latter and smaller toadlets didn't get fed enough and they started to die off. if i had fed them all, i'd be at over 100 toadlets. there's a population of cherry shrimp on the bottom of this tank that'll eat a dead froglet in one day.

there is a balance between water quality and how much food i throw into this tank. so i don't max out the food. wish i could save them all, but then i'd be up to my eyeballs in toadlets and would be branded, rightfully so, a crazy frog person.

[daybr4ke]

Wow. At that rate you could probably sell CB firebellies lol