Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[alane]

Well, it must be Easter. My one female has gotten fat...my frogs are making a racket...and this morning I see a few eggs.

The first set of eggs she laid was last year, they were highly fertile and I have 20 subadults still from last year. Many more laying sessions last season became less and less fertile until she laid eggs that all failed.

I was astounded that the 40 or so tadpoles I got ended up eating about five pounds of spinach. It all went into my filters as nasty smelling green goo. I lost about half of them, the ones that didn't do well coming at the end of the season.

It looks like I need to keep a close eye on a few round blobs to see whether or not they develop.

I sure do not need any more frogs in this tank and will have to cull them all. But they are so cute. Kills me.
I need a fish that'll eat eggs but somehow leave my cherry shrimp alone. Sigh.

I read recently that a good way to lower pH is with tannin. I have very mineralized basic tap water. So, it seems that throwing a pinecone into my tank is a good way to lower the pH. The tannins do not seem to have hurt any of the residents.

Good lord that poor female. She has four males grabbing her.

The sub-adult toadlets are also practicing amplexus but they are not good at it yet.

It was hilarious to see an adult try to amplexus a sub-adult. One frog just completely wraps around another frog. Looks unpleasant for the subject. The eternal struggle. Legs go every which way. LOL!

[alane]

Not a whole lot of eggs laid, I can count maybe eight. I suspect I can see only half of them, froggies hide them well.

They are developing quickly. Yesterday they were spheres. Today they are elongated crescents and I can tell which end is the head.

It is quite amazing to watch the progress.

I have quite a buildup of algae in places. If these fellows hatch out, they will probably strip the tank clean like they did last time.

[alane]

The first tadpole of this year is now free of it's egg. I suspect the rest will follow soon. Just 3 days for the egg to hatch!

I look forward to the tadpole-eats-algae phase, where they munch non-stop on anything green for many weeks.

They eventually get very active and the tank becomes bedlam with 'little dark colored grapes' swimming constantly every which way.

I'm hoping to set up a security camera to watch this tank for the next few weeks. An edited video of 12 weeks of development compressed into a minute might be interesting.

I have one male who _really_ wants to go. But I have only one egg laying female in a tank of five adults and fifteen subadults. So he ends up grabbing the Wrong Frog most of the time. Poor things. To be grabbed underwater and held there, underwater, whilst you are struggling to get away looks kind of scary to us humans. Nightmare fuel actually. But that's what these creatures do. Never seen one drown.

[alane]

this morning i can count six 'clinger' tadpoles. A few more eggs yet to hatch. And a new batch of a few eggs laid.

Last year had only a small population of cherry shrimp. But now I have a maximum population and it makes it hard to count anything.

I am surprised that they are coming in less than 'ten' at a time. I am gratified that it's not 'hundreds'.

As I recall, it's a few days before a clinger starts eating the algae on the side of the tank.

And two toads in solid 24/7 amplexus, probably gonna be like that for a week.

They love their crickets so much. The other day was not feeding time, but a cricket leg was floating in the water. One of the toadlets noticed this, got into position to hunt down this floating leg. It struck accurately. *gulp*. My they love their crickets, even the drumsticks.

[alane]

Well, they are free swimming now and eating all the time. I've started to put a few leaves of wilted spinach in the tank and they eat it up, as well as the algae. the 'coil' of their intestines is now apparent and they are a continual food processing machine. It's very hard to get an accurate count but I believe I counted twelve the other day.

It looks like the first batch of eggs is super healthy and 100% viable. no further eggs yet. but i've been feeding my tank well and my frogs are phat.

[alane]

Twelve or so tadpoles are doing fine.

Last night, quite a racket from the tank. I know what that means.
They are all over the place...
This morning, I figure at least 25 more eggs have been laid.

Yes, I saw that my female was way, way fat last night. But I didn't say anything so as to not hurt her feelings. I told her this morning she looked Very Slim Indeed!

[sambal]

Very nice that they're getting it on again! Mine are still a bit slow, it's rather cold here for the time of the year so I guess they don't have that spring feeling yet. Please consider raising the tadpoles to toadlets and selling those. I learned that almost all fire bellies sold at pet shops are actually wild caught. I think it's great if we can saturate the market with captive bread frogs so the wild populations can be left alone! In my area a lot of pet shops were interested as well as private individuals. I ended up selling about 60 juveniles over the time span of just a month. Also sold another 50 or so tadpoles. Btw; I am curious how your one year olds look like now, could you post some photos? You show me yours I'll show you mine!