Sticky - Tadpole care and feeding

[Venutus1]

Finished. Now its stuffed w/ tads and I need another one.
a 55 maybe?

[Natures Gems]

thanks for posting all the useful info here.although my first intention was keeping it simple for the beginner i'm finding all the info being posted here very helpful for those thinking about communal rearing.

i hope most of the community is actually looking at all the info. due to the post being titled "geared toward beginners" i'm hoping some people aren't bypassing all your very helpful posts to raising tadpoles in this different way.

i myself am finding the posts and photos very interesting.thanks

tom

[Venutus1]

Oops...sorry Tom,
I got excited when I saw somebody doing "cubes" and missed the Beginner part.
I kind of still am a beginner though...I have only had darts for only a few years
Thanks!
Todd

[Stu&Shaz]

Tom i am a beginner so if this doen't work i will come foward and tell ya'll Todd good stuff. Realistically though for a novice all methods need to be weighed up,and evaluated,this beginner has already learned from this thread,for sure others will too for me that makes ALL the effort worth while,i guess other more experiance folks already have methods that work,but what is important is that POTENTIAL methods are out there for all to evaluate,thats the point of forums to me,ha and the occassional laugh,tis the sharing of minds,for the benefit of the frogs.Tom, maybe more experianced folks will help : show why their methods work,i agree it would be nice to have their imput,
bring it on
Stu

[Philsuma]

Tom et al,

I'm making this a sticky due to all the great posts here in such a short time. This is an excellent thread and as long as Tom is ok with it....we can add to it....maybe make it THE go-to thread for tads ?

[Natures Gems]

Tom et al,

I'm making this a sticky due to all the great posts here in such a short time. This is an excellent thread and as long as Tom is ok with it....we can add to it....maybe make it THE go-to thread for tads ?

yes phil no problems with me and the posts. no feeling of being hijacked...LOL. a lot of very good info indeed. keep it coming maybe get rid of "geared toward beginners"
whatever you think would be helpful to all phil.

tom

[Stu&Shaz]

Tom with your blessing i'd like to quiz Todd,on why he thinks uvb might be important for tads,i realise we have a separate ubv light thread in place elsewhere but thought that the thoughts of a guy that knows more about lighting than i,might be thought provoking here .
so Todd,like the set up,i see you have cut holes for uvb,do you also have a low iron glass in the usa that could be of use?
Why do you actually use uvb for tads,are there indirect benefits such as the uvb helping to kill moulds/fungii?
You have said that you might even up the dose of uvb ie the strength of light,what is your reasoning behind this.
Finally and away from the lights on to the cubes,how do you think you could improve the design of your tank and especially your cubes,you have already stated the next one might be more sterile,by less plants could you give me/us any more thougths
regards
Stu

[Natures Gems]

Stu,

I'm finding all this communal rearing and setups interesting feel free to continue you interest as well.i think a lot of people can benefit from some of the ideas should they decide to go the communal route.

tom

[tclipse]

Personally, I don't change water, only topoffs.... I've yet to lose a tadpole or have one develop with SLS in the ~1.5 years I've had frogs breeding (tads of 5 different species). I know it's not a very long timeframe, but so far my methods have worked well for me. A bit of salvinia/java moss, a bit of almond leaf, and feeding carefully goes a long way. If you start seeing an oily film on top of the water, you're feeding too much.

Pumilio tads and thumbnail tads left in-viv don't get water changes, they have half-eaten eggs in the water with them with little air exchange.. yet they do just fine. A tad cup has much more water than most viv brom axils, with more surface area to keep the aerobic bacteria going. I don't worry about it, and it hasn't been a problem.


This was a picture taken in a post by Elmoisfive on the 'board next door...'

"The one on the far right is the 50% [water change] every 3 days , the far upper left is the 50% every 2 weeks, the bottom left just topped off with tadpole water [no water change]."

Obviously, it's only one trial, but still the results are pretty interesting there... and it's one of the reasons I don't do WC's. Until it's broke, I ain't gonna fix it.

[EntoCraig]

I dont know why I thought Tads would be difficult to raise. After reading this, they seem super easy! Thanks for sharing.

I just bought 10 tads and I am stoked!

[Philsuma]

What species ?

[EntoCraig]

5 Leucomelas, 3 Azureus, 2 Cobalts. Most have back legs already.

Moving Sale

[Philsuma]

One item that I would highly recommend to be place in every tadpole container would be a slice of Indian Almond leaf. The benefits are many. The tadpole grazes on the biofilm that collects on the leaf. The leaf provides cover and shelter (until consumed and replaced with another). The leaf provides for the release of tannins - anti fungal properties.

[Stu&Shaz]

A while back on this thread,i showed some piece of our rearing system or the tad gizmo,as it is affectionately named,its still very early for a proper appraisal ,and do remember that we have only kept darts for months so at anytime I'm up for being proved wrong. Since we started using this system for our older tads ,now a few months i can report back this, growth rates are really good,losses are negligible,ok losses in the gizmo stand at Nil. We have successfully morphed out around 25 SB auratus we have lost one,which for no reason died at morphout. seven mysties,2 perished just after coming ootw,down i believe to my inadequacies nothing more. We have swapped over to a higher uvb bulb made by arcadia no problems have been found.No sls has been seen. So far my concerns about disease and tads excreting inhibitors are totally unfounded,all tads are coming out big i think, i have nothing to measure this against. I worry little about over feeding,thats not to say I'm not careful but its not like the game one plays with a tad in a cup/glass. So would i say to others whom rear in glasses to try this,hell yeah,is it worth the time spent making it ...definitely. This will come back many times over in the course of a season,because this system is so easy to use.I still use the glasses for getting the tads started,as i can gently raise the water level as they get stronger once they are swimming well then they go to this and all the work is gone,period,i do a partial water change about weekly and this takes about a minute,hard life huh!! So we get to spend time talking to tads feeding them live grub,often by hand,because we are slightly mad 8). This is effortless,when it goes wrong I'll shout but so far if you rear any tadpoles my serious hunch is to get busy and make one of these,and then enjoy,time is precious for all of us,and this takes the work out of tad rearing,just makes life soooo easy,(world wide patent pending :lol: ,nah,have a try)
merry chrimbo
Stu

[Philsuma]

Very good Stu ! Wonderful you are continuing this project. Keep records (I'm terrible at notations) with this and when you have 2-3 years and 2-300 tads thru it....it will be even more valuable for record keeping.

[Stu&Shaz]

Very good Stu ! Wonderful you are continuing this project. Keep records (I'm terrible at notations) with this and when you have 2-3 years and 2-300 tads thru it....it will be even more valuable for record keeping.

Cheers Phil I'm trying on the records front,(its a great point to make) I'm also appalling at at. Hmm 2-300 tads,I'll have a word with the girls tomorrow about stopping laying for a while :roll: :lol: .
I might be joking ,but we are really trying to stop them in all seriousness,we have slowed things dramatically but stopping them completely is possibly the biggest most difficult hurdle so far we have encountered!!.
Stu

[Venutus1]

One item that I would highly recommend to be place in every tadpole container would be a slice of Indian Almond leaf. The benefits are many. The tadpole grazes on the biofilm that collects on the leaf. The leaf provides cover and shelter (until consumed and replaced with another). The leaf provides for the release of tannins - anti fungal properties.

They say that the Indian almond leaf also contains naturally occurring anti-fungal agents.

I was just re-reading this informative post and that reminded me to order some more leaves.

[Philsuma]

I Totally agree that Tadpoles should get some UVB....maybe only 20 mins a day or so, plus they can retreat under their Indian Almond leaf slice if it gets too bright.

[Stu&Shaz]

Hey guys,i'm pretty damn excited,we are trying out anew product that may well be a great help to all of us rearing tads.I guess some of you realise we use rainwater for all our frogs,and also for the tadpoles.But there is a risk,as we can't really be sure what that rainwater might contain.Carbon filters are effective for a given time period i'm lead to believe,and have the potential to re release nasties back into the water,i always thought that carbon was dead safe but conversations else where have implicated this in sls. So we are trying out a form of filter,which purifies water locking those nasties up,what is so remarkable to me is that this product changes colour so tells one when one needs to change it,also it gives colour changes for different substances found
Blue-green ionic copper
Blue showing removal of Cu salts
Green- Yellow for ammonia
Orange for iron
Red for aluminium
Black for heavy organics
Yellow for lead
When this filter is saturated it will turn dark brown/black and then needs replacing.
i'm trialing it in the gizmo,where i have placed it where the water flows to the filter
in some plain rainwater so i can find out what we are dealing with

and with 2 auratus tads in an almost identical group of 4

so i have 2 tads acting as a control (ahh man i've gone all sciency...lol)
we'll all see what happens as it happens
the product is called the terrarium polyfilter
alink...well you know hopefully
http://www.arcadia-uk.info/product.p...n=en&sub=&id=4
take care
Stu

[Stu&Shaz]

a second attempt at a link...Glen shhhhh :roll: :lol:
https://www.arcadia-uk.info/product.php ... &sub=&id=4
Stu
If at first i don't succeed ...I'll be back