Tadpoles not surviving. Water ?

[hara]

I have been attempting to raise azureus tads for almost a year now. For every one that successfully makes it to the "out of the water" stage, I lose one at "front legs popped but tail not yet absorbed" stage. They will be fine one day and dead the next with nothing that I can tell going wrong.

Does anyone have any advice?

[RichFrye]

Hi Lisa,
What do you feed the tads? How's your water quality? What kind of water do you use? How often do you change water?

Rich

[hara]

Each of the tubs has java moss and algae growth. I am feeding a spirulina and fry food powder mix that I blend up fresh weekly. I use well water or ro/di water..depending on if any is mixed up on the day I change out the water. I change out the water about 75% weekly.

[TonyC]

I'm unsure of the content of the foods your feeding, but I know that high protein diets tend to be preferred by larger frogs. Perhaps you should try feeding less algae and more tadpole bites. I feed my tads exclusively on tadpole bites and do quite well with them. Just a suggestion..... Hope it works out better for you!

Tony

[joshsfrogs]

How are you providing for them to leave the water? If you make it difficult for them to leave the water, you will in fact be culling those that have weak front legs (mild SLS). That's a good thing.

Half dying to SLS (mild or otherwise) is high. Have they been breeding for a year straight? I would slow them down, fatten them up, and make sure you are using fresh supplements with the breeders.

[hara]

Thanks for the suggestions. Where would I find tadpole bites?

The parental pair took a couple of months off and are now "off" again as well. So they havent been breeding non stop during the year. I will also pick up some fresh supplements. The expiration date is nowhere near on the containers but I have had them for a good while.

[Cindy Dicken]

Lisa,
next time you have tadpoles, you might consider raising them with bottle spring water, we use Ozarka. RO water is void of minerals that tadpoles need for development, and do you know what's in your well water?

Most big box pet stores will have tadpole bites.

As for the vitamins, even though they are still 'in date', once the vitamins have been opened and come in contact with air, they start to degrade. It is a good idea to replace them every 6 month to 1 year after they have been opened, we also keep ours in the refrigerator.

[joshsfrogs]

RO water is void of minerals that tadpoles need for development

This has been discussed at length before, but I do not think this is an issue at all (especially if you add java moss, or something else to the tadpole water). All my tanks are misted with straight RO water, all my eggs are misted with straight RO water, and all tadpoles are raised on straight RO water (I add java moss to all the containers too).

See: http://www.tracyhicks.com/H2O.htm for more discussion on this issue.

[Cindy Dicken]

Misting tanks with RO and raising tadpoles in RO are two different things.
To each their own.

[hara]

the majority of the time it is well water that is used. I use this same water in my 200 plus gallons of freshwater aquariums, some of which are very heavily planted, and have not had any bad results. As for official water testing of it, I have never done so. I do understand the importance and differences between water sources and am confident the well water is not the issue. Just for the sake of experimentation though, when next they produce eggs, I will use bottled spring water on that batch to see if there is a difference in the percentage raised.

[RichFrye]

One note, much bottled spring water is RO filtered to "clean" it up, so you may actually be using RO without any minerals.
Rich

[Dancing frogs]

One note, much bottled spring water is RO filtered to "clean" it up, so you may actually be using RO without any minerals.
Rich

Yeah, if you read the label, most of them add back minerals to "improve taste"
If you already have an RO unit, and want some minerals, just pony up the $10-15 to get some RO right. I bought the smallest jar you can get (250g) of the powder, more than a year ago, and still have about 9/10 of the jar left, and I usually have at least 30 tads in the water at any given time.

[thelifespark]

stupid question....but what's RO water?

[chrismcdowell25]

Reverse Osmosis (R.O) Water is the term meaning " to filter out a large percentage of solids in the water".

[Jake]

what about putting some vitamin powder in the water and mixing it? That'd be simple since you already have it.

[kristy55303]

As leery as I am about java moss, and believe me I am worried about it and wonder how to disinfect it without killing it, I keep and raise my tadpoles a different way.

I would say they are raised in somewhat "dirty" water - spring water from the store that is. I then boil Indian almond leaves down, and add a leaf skeleton, put in FF deli cup and add some of the tea left over - like two spoonfuls. The first couple weeks, I just have a bit of algae in the water, then I exclusively feed hbh tad bites. unless, I can smell anything "bad" from the water, which 95% of the time I can't, or if you notice any fungus, which I have seen once when I first had tads of azureus, I do a complete water change. But, for the most part, all tadpole containers have no smell whatsoever and I keep the temps around 72 degrees and although they may morph out a little slower, they morph out fine and pretty big IMO. I don't do complete water changes unless warranted by a smell etc.

Kristy

[Philsuma]

another good tadpole thread...

[Natures Gems]

many good suggestions. i have found for me that spring water kept at room temperature is best. i add oak leaves to the water to make a very mild tadpole tea.
in the tadpole cups i use this water along with a small oak leaf for cover.
for feeding i alternate a spirulina/chlorella powder mix, occasional tadpole bite, sera micron on occasion, and fish flakes on occasion.
the tadpoles seem to do very well on this mixture for me with very healthy offspring. good luck.

tom