Video Link. Self-feeding tank for juvenile southern leopard frogs

[HomeschoolMom]

Hello Everyone,

This is our first annual homeschool summer science project. Our frog Farm. We gathered the tadpoles from a local pond and raised them into juvenile frogs. The anticipated result is that we will be able to release the frogs at the end of the summer in the same pond where we collected the tadpoles. The experiment has gone well so far and we anticipate making this a yearly summer science project for our homeschool curriculum. Here is a 7 minute video reporting on the most efficient way we have found to feed our juvenile Southern leopard frogs.

This video serves mainly as the last step in our scientific process of discovery: reporting our findings and sharing with the scientific community.

Our intent in creating a profile with this frog forum is to further our knowledge in local amphibians, insects and plant life.

We are a family of autism and ADHD. As mother to this household and homeschool teacher, I speak very literally. That's just part of having autism. In advance please forgive any tone to my writing that might possibly be perceived as being rude. I am just a matter of fact type of person.

On a side note, if there is anyone who wants to learn more about autism, ADHD or other developmental disabilities, I am open to answering honest questions about the subject of special needs. We have several neurological disorders within our family unit and there is far too little understanding about the way our minds work in today's society. Don't worry about offending me if you have questions about autism, ADHD, developmental delays and disabilities, or any other type of neurodiverse label. Here is the link to the video.

https://youtu.be/ZS57Sn6UNw0

[Herpin Man]

That's a very interesting set up. As someone who is always trying to trap the rogue fruit flies in my herp room and utilize them as feeders, I admire your creativity. Dead mealworms or superworms also make excellent fruit fly bait.
One question though, are you sure those are southern leopard frogs? It's not clear in the video, but from what I could see it didn't look like a leopard.

[HomeschoolMom]

That's a very interesting set up. As someone who is always trying to trap the rogue fruit flies in my herp room and utilize them as feeders, I admire your creativity. Dead mealworms or superworms also make excellent fruit fly bait.
One question though, are you sure those are southern leopard frogs? It's not clear in the video, but from what I could see it didn't look like a leopard.

Southern Leopard Frogs is our hypothesis based on our observations thus far in our expirement. We have compared pics at diffetent stages of the metamorphosis cycle with those online of native species of frog in our area.

During the tadpole stage they were set up in a kitty pond, converted into tadpole pond, in a shady part of the yard. At that point in our experiment we fed them a combination of goldfish flakes and roots from local plants. My children and I took pictures of the tadpoles, first every few days, then every few weeks. We have been tracking their progress in digital photo albums, compared to other digital photo albums where I have saved pictures from online of the different local species in our region.

At one point we thought we had bullfrog tadpoles as well because of the differences in growth rate at the tadpole stage. As the tadpoles were growing into froglets and coming out of the water, we discovered that there was an opening in the tadpole pond enclosure screen. Approximately 10 to 12 juvenile frogs escaped before ever being discovered, and subsequently transferred into the frog tank enclosure, (pictured in video).

I'm in the process of compiling a detailed report on our findings from this experiment. This, of course, is overkill compared to what our current curriculum Should be. That is also part of having autism. My children have not even technically started our kindergarten school year yet and we are a bit ahead when it comes to the scientific discovery section of our curriculum.

Having OCD and autism, I have prepared a curriculum that is much more diverse and in-depth than for my children's current age group. But it has been a very fun experience for me as well to learn more about frogs and our local insects. I am happy to enclose a copy of our end of summer findings report, along with info of the release of these frogs, once we have finished our Frog Farm summer science experiment.

[HomeschoolMom]

That's a very interesting set up. As someone who is always trying to trap the rogue fruit flies in my herp room and utilize them as feeders, I admire your creativity. Dead mealworms or superworms also make excellent fruit fly bait.
One question though, are you sure those are southern leopard frogs? It's not clear in the video, but from what I could see it didn't look like a leopard.

Ive sorted out a google photo album here that does not include family photos. I did this really quickly as we have therapy today. Please forgive, but you may not be able to find any frogs in some of these pics. I did not have time to sort through very well. At the end of the summer I will create a more precise and comprehensive photo album specifically for reporting to this forum. For now I just grabbed all of the photos real quick and I hope that I got some good ones of the frogs. They're so tiny it's hard to see. Especially since the glass in this 10 gallon tank is so dirty. It is a very old tank so the side walls are also pretty scratched up. I know there are at least a few good photos in here though. 6 frogs all together in this tank. I also included older pics of the tadpole pond enclosure.

Here is the link...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/k13jtem6wz1F4N8t7

[Herpin Man]

Thanks for posting the link to the photos. Although they don't show the frogs close up or in great detail, I can see that they are chorus frogs, not leopard frogs. They appear to be upland chorus frogs. See photos here for comparison:
https://www.google.com/search?q=upla...w=1271&bih=592

[HomeschoolMom]

Thanks for posting the link to the photos. Although they don't show the frogs close up or in great detail, I can see that they are chorus frogs, not leopard frogs. They appear to be upland chorus frogs. See photos here for comparison:
https://www.google.com/search?q=upla...w=1271&bih=592

Thank you for the clarification. I will start researching chorus frogs more closely. If you have any links you could drop to chorus frog specific info web pages that would be super useful. I see the darker color strip from the eye area, skinnier as the strip goes toward the back of the body. We have 1 of the 6 frogs that does not have that stripe. But that one has been hard to spot. It emerged on land and dropped its tail about 2 weeks later than the bulk group and has been very shy. Ive only seen it twice. When i caught it out of the pond enclosure (as i was cleaning it all up and closing it down for summer, didnt know it was in there); and just 2 days ago when i had to catch all 6 frogs out of the 10 gal frog tank. Come ro think of it, i should have took some detailed pics then. Next tank cleaning i will make it a point to. When i clean the 10 gal frog tank i now put all the frogs in separate containers. Im learning their ways as i go. Ive had fish, turtles, hermit crabs, geckos; but this is my first experience with frogs. Im glad my kids are a part of this new experience and we are getting to learn this together as part of our summer science curriculum. I look forward to sharing more with you as we move forward.

[HomeschoolMom]

Thanks for posting the link to the photos. Although they don't show the frogs close up or in great detail, I can see that they are chorus frogs, not leopard frogs. They appear to be upland chorus frogs. See photos here for comparison:
https://www.google.com/search?q=upla...w=1271&bih=592

2nd attempt reply. First attempts did not post and I lost all the text.

Thank you for the info. I see that same color band pattern behind the eye on five of the six frogs. The sixth one has a little bit of a different pattern, but honestly it's still so tiny it's hard to tell. That sixth frog was discovered when I attempted to clean out and shut down the tadpole pond enclosure for the summer. I had no idea there was even any tadpoles left. I thought I had searched thoroughly but apparently that last one evaded my searches until time for clean out. The sixth frog was also about two weeks later than the bulk group. I tried to get pictures of this last frog but he is very shy. I've only ever seen him when I first put him into the frog tank and when I cleaned out the frog tank two days ago.

Two days ago was the second time I've ever cleaned out the frog tank. The first time I had tried to catch all of the frogs and put them in the same separate container to avoid escape as I was cleaning the tank. At that point I actually discovered an extra frog that I did not know was in there. We thought we had four and then the last one from the pond was 5. The first time I ever cleaned out the 10 gallon tank I discovered that we actually had six. During the time of the bulk of the frogs dropping their tails, they were so jumpy and I guess one that I thought had escaped during the original transport had actually made it in there somehow! I hope that reads well and doesn't sound confusing.

Upon cleaning out the 10 gallon tank for the second time I realized that I needed to put the frogs each in their own separate containers. Since I've got you on the horn here, can you tell me a bit about chorus frogs? At what point will they grow to be about palm-sized? If I release these juvenile frogs next month in August, I wonder if they will survive.

I know I'm not disrupting the ecosystem as I'm releasing them in the exact same spot where I found the tadpoles. This is a man-made pond at my grandfather's house. Before releasing the juvenile frogs that we have in our 10 gallon frog tank, I plan on going to my grandfather's house and constructing a 'frog house'. I looked up basic specifications for a "garden toad house," (as it's called online), and I plan on taking pictures of that as well. That will be the very last phase of this project which we are calling our release date.

I'm taking detailed notes on all of this so that we can perform the exact same experiment next summer. This was all very cool to my toddler's and their friends, but I believe a bit of repetition is going to be needed to reinforce the frog metamorphosis process for my children to fully assimilate everything that we've done this summer.

If you have any links you could drop to specific web pages about info and care of chorus frogs that would be super useful. I will continue my online research and update our homeschool digital Google photo albums and integrate this new information into our summer science discovery lesson plan. Thank you again.

[Herpin Man]

Chorus frogs stay very small. I don't know of any good care web sites, as they are seldom kept in captivity. I kept a few as a kid, so I'm by no means an expert. Outside of breeding season they are terrestrial, and very secretive. I would say keeping them fairly cool, with lots of hiding places and tiny insects, is the best way to keep them.

[HomeschoolMom]

Chorus frogs stay very small. I don't know of any good care web sites, as they are seldom kept in captivity. I kept a few as a kid, so I'm by no means an expert. Outside of breeding season they are terrestrial, and very secretive. I would say keeping them fairly cool, with lots of hiding places and tiny insects, is the best way to keep them.

Thank you for your reply. Now the frog tank is in the open carport. Temps ourside in 90s, but the tank is in total shade with a box fan close by. I will keep an eye out for hot temps now. I dont have a tank thermometer anymore since we re-homed our hermit crab, 55gal. Sent all exotic pet equipment with them. I thought i was done with exotics, but i guess i cant help but love the tank/ terrarium building aspect. I thought with the local frogs, though, that at least its only a summer thing. Lol. I get bored with exotic pets after a few years. Hopefull "Frog Farm" will be a good compromise for my personality (vs. the, usual, long term nature of exotic pets).

[HomeschoolMom]

New Video Link.....

https://youtu.be/tzkN94IrQnQ

I changed the positioning of the light just a bit. In this video you will see that i placed the light much higher up so that I can leave it on longer. I was worried about the temperature rising too high with the light being so close to the 10 gallon frog tank enclosure. Last night was the first trial run of leaving the light on all night long. The six juvenile frogs in this tank are eating more and more of the fruit flies and small insects that come in through the funnel system on top of the tank. Instead of leaving the light on for about 2 to 4 hours every other day I'm going to adjust our feeding to leaving the light on all night long. This would be turning it on sometime between 8 and 10 p.m. and then turning it off in the morning sometime between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Last night was my first time doing this. There were absolutely no flies in the tank this morning when I turned the light off. But there was frog poop everywhere. I counted at least 12 separate frog turds. So I guess that means flies did go in and now they are turds. LOL.

Becoming a member of this frog forum and posting these YouTube videos is also a good exercise for me to learn how to use the YouTube interface. YouTube is becoming more and more important to our homeschool efforts and my husband's business. Posting these videos of our frogs is serving as double duty for my own education in learning the social media aspect of YouTube for use with homeschool and my husband's company, Maple Leaf Metal Fabrication. I think I may need to start using one of our tablets to take these videos. I am noticing a big difference in the video itself when I watch it from the file on the phone directly versus watching the video once it has been posted to YouTube. The videos are a lot more blurry when they have been posted to YouTube.

To anyone reading I also wanted to ask some advice on the 10 gallon tank itself. As you can see from the videos the tank is extremely dirty but it's not just dirty it's totally scratched up on the inside. This particular 10 gallon tank has been with us for a long time and has been used for so many purposes that it is starting to show its age with me now trying to take more photos and videos. It's been very difficult to photograph and video the frogs in this tank because it's so dirty. I wonder if any of you seasoned frog keepers have any tidbits or advice about how to resolve this issue. I've had several Exotics over the last decade and a half and the only way I have found to get rid of some of this staining on the tank has been to completely clean out the tank, empty it and use vinegar mixed into a water solution soaked for long periods of time, then scrub it out with a plastic bristle brush, then scrape it with a window scraper razor blade. Of course this requires a lot of work and time. I wonder if there is any product that would be safe for reptiles and amphibians that I could use without having to do a complete clean out and overhaul of the tank. I don't think the frogs so much mind that the glass is dirty but it does inhibit the ability to take good photos and videos. I am counting on these photos and videos, and all of the text reports and dialogue that I'm using on our various internet media, in order to reinforce this same homeschool lesson of frog metamorphosis next year. Having special needs means that most of the educational curriculum that I use in our homeschool classroom is visual based. I'm finding it increasingly important to have good quality photos and videos of the concepts and lessons that we are using. So you can see that the fact that the glass is so dirty is becoming an issue. If any of the board members here have any info about keeping this glass clean on the inside, that would be a great and wonderful help to our efforts.