my sons tadpoles

[smidey]

my son has collect some tadpoles & has them in a small tank. there are quite a few, they have been in the tank for a couple of weeks now & are doing well. we have added oxygen weed & they get a water change everyday.

what will we need to do as they grow larger & start to grow legs etc?

I have an empty 4 foot tank he wants to keep some frogs in, i figure it will do well if it has a small amount of water in the bottom with rockwork for them to sit on & a few ferns & other plants.

[amethyst]

You need to make sure the top on the tank fits really really well. They can squeeze out of the tiniest wee hole!

[oneeyedfrog]

Our frogs are in a 5ft tank - its only 38 wide and high and I siliconed a piece of glass a few inches high half way along so that 1/2 is water and 1/2 land.

Plants in the water and land. Branches and rocks all thru. They seem to spend equal amounts of time in the water or on the land.

Tight fitting lid to keep frogs and flies in :lol: but needs ventilation too. I made afew lift up lids with old bits of perpex I had. Cut holes in it and covered with mesh. Made a small flap to add flies etc too.

[smidey]

great, thanks for that info.

[amethyst]

We used a bit of aluminium frame like you'd make a fly screen out of, split the tank in half and made 2 frames to fit so we can take one half off and the other half is still covered.

[Ruru]

Not sure how much you know about the diet so:

While they are small they will be grazing on the algae within the oxygen weed, but when they start to grow legs they turn omnivorous and may start to eat each other. This can be avoided by sprinkling some goldfish flakes or pellets on the water.

Once they grow front legs and come ashore they will need invertebrate food. For small frogs this can include fruitflies, houseflies, small earthworms (may want to consider chopping them into bit-sized pieces), small moths and beetle larvae.

[smidey]

awesome, thanks so much for that

[Carlos & Siran]

Some inspiration though we've since replaced the wild caught native ferns with shop bought ones as we've found the wild stuff didn't like being taken from out side and plomped inside. By all accounts northern golden bells don't need as much water a southern ones.

[Carlos & Siran]

Not sure how much you know about the diet so:

While they are small they will be grazing on the algae within the oxygen weed, but when they start to grow legs they turn omnivorous and may start to eat each other. This can be avoided by sprinkling some goldfish flakes or pellets on the water.

Once they grow front legs and come ashore they will need invertebrate food. For small frogs this can include fruitflies, houseflies, small earthworms (may want to consider chopping them into bit-sized pieces), small moths and beetle larvae.

I'm not arguing with you as I don't really know but I read some where on these forums that you shouldn't feed them fish flakes as they're bad for them or something, we did and all but one of ours died.

[repto]

I agree,they only eat decaying vegetation in the wild?We used to use lettuce leaves etc when we raised them.Some people say they eat mosquito larvae etc but I do not think this is correctr either,especially when you study their mouthparts?Have seen stuff on TV with carnivorous species but we are talking NZ here.Have seen them suck on dead ones etc but to say they killed them to eat is a bit over the top IMO.

[smidey]

cool. thanks repto, carlos & siran

[sneaky2]

dont forget filteration for the water area

[alanmin4304]

I found they did best in rainwater with lots of algae and I fed them brine shrimp nuplii and fishfood flake.

[sneaky2]

I found they did best in rainwater with lots of algae and I fed them brine shrimp nuplii and fishfood flake.

i was refering to filteration for the frogs

[Ruru]

I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that limb growth would require higher levels of protein than available in a plant-based diet. Also as the tadpoles metamorph the mouth changes shape, becoming wider and more suited to catching food than scrapping it.

I definitely don't recommend feeding fish flakes to young tadpoles, but I have seen older tadpoles preferentially feed on fish flakes when their usual vegetable alternative was available. I've also had the smaller tadpoles die when older ones decide to go carnivore and bite their tails off.

Tadpoles have a much larger available diet than we are able to give them in the wild. Most pond water that contains tadpoles is crawling with invertebrates, not just rotting vegetation. In the pond we collected our last lot from there were many things swimming around, including ticks, ostracoda, daphnia, little worms and many other things I can't name.

[repto]

I think the protein required comes from the absorbing of tail in the later stages of metamorphosis,at least?

[Insect Direct]

if lack of food they will eat each other, just like reptiles, rodents, insects and so on.

big can eat small but i think thats more lack of food then a must consume protein. most of the dead ones you see them eating, most likely died from poor water quality first. tadpoles will clean up anything dead/decaying.

vege is good, freeze dont boil then feed as required.