We have had tadpoles from our leucomelas and were unable to get them to live. Now we are lucky enough to have tadpoles from our D.arautus, and we could really use some help on a good setup for raising them. Any and all suggestions or pictures of your setups would be appreciated. The leucs have started calling again and the auratus haven't stopped. It would be wonderful to get these little guys to grow and morph.Right now the tadpoles are in a rubbermaid container with a couple of inches of water in it but the temperature gets cool in the house at night.
Hello Moparguy, and congrat on the tadpoles.
We raise all of our tadpoles individually, due to cannibalistic tendencies.
We use pint or quart size glass jars and will place one tadople in each jar with a small amount of java moss, we use bottle spring water, and tadpole tea. We use the tadpole tea for the first 2 weeks, and slowly replace it with straight spring water as we top it off.
When the tadpole first emerges from the egg is when it is most vulnerable.
We usually will leave the tadpoles on the peteri dish and increase the amount of water on the petri dish. Once we see the tadpole is able to swim, we then transfer the tadpole to a glass jar with about a half inch of tadpole tea in it and a piece of the java moss. You will need to keep a close eye on the water, and top it off as necessary, gradually increasing the amount over the next week or so. We usually do not feed the tadpoles for the first few days, they have the java moss to nibble on. Starting with the flake fish or tadpole food too soon can cause problems.
Keeping the water temp too cool can slow down the morphing considerably.
There are many different techniques for raising tadpoles, this is our version.
The main differences between Cindy's and my setup is:
-I don't use any tadpole tea (I use straight RO water)
-As soon as the tadpole hatches (and sometimes I help them out by LIGHTLY shaking the petri dish), I put them in a couple inches of water with the java moss. I have found that the tads will play dead at this time, which makes them easier to transfer. A swimming tad is hard to spoon out.
-I will fill the cup up completely as soon as a day after the tadpole hatches rather than gradually filling it over time. I really think the idea of water being too deep for new tadpoles is an urban legend.
Thanks for the help! We found another way that someone was doing it with all the tads in a 2.5gal tank so we are trying that now. The leucs also laid again so maybe well try a different method for that clutch. For now, all 5 auratus tads are swimming, eating and doing well.
Just a quick update. We still have 5 tadpoles all are doing well so far - eating and growing. The leucomelas eggs didn't look fertlized but the male is still calling, so we are hopeful for better results there as well.