Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[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

[alane]

they sell at the local pet store for $3. :O

[daybr4ke]

Wow. In my area it's usually 6 or so dollars. Still, if you have have excess you can offer them on Craigslist for a couple bucks each and still make a bit of money, but it's probably not worth it lol

[alane]

I started feeding them nightcrawlers. I have to cut the worm into pieces. The first feeding was hilarious:

I put the worm in the middle of the tank. All five adults came up to look at it. None would eat. They were all daring each other to go first.
Eventually one ate it, tentatively.

Now, I find that one of my adults simply does not like worms. Three of them will eat them willingly. One of them goes absolutely nuts for worms and will snap excitedly and randomly whenever one comes near. A good worm meal makes 'em go catatonic in the sense that they'll just stare at space blankly nomatter what you do.

I try to feed the adults worms first before I throw in the crickets. The small crickets are supposed to be for the toadlets.

A really short worm segment can be swallowed by a toadlet. However, not all at once. And this typically results in two frogs struggling to eat the same worm. If two frogs get the same worm, they do anything they can to wrench the worm out of the other frogs mouth. they both start flailing wildly. poor worm.

[daybr4ke]

Wow, brutal!
Interesting to find out about the one toad not liking worms. Everybody has preferences, right?