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Here are the shots I mentioned in the previous post. The embryo inverted some time last night and has been that way all day. Not sure if there is anything that looks out of place. The round spot on the belly jumped out at me - stomach? Intestines? I'm no biologist:
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Here is a closer view of the belly and mouth:
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Here's the updated progression. Unfortunately the arrival of the eggs came just ahead of a planned trip, so there will be an upcoming pause in the daily shots for 5 days 
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Well, with some "creative" camera and petri dish positioning I was able to get a good dorsal shot today. The embryo looks good to me...Let me know if anyone sees anything out of the ordinary:
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It's quite disturbing to see this thing belly up all the time 
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Here's the updated progression sequence:
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I think it hatched early this morning. I cannot see the egg any longer and it had moved from the center of the petri dish to an edge. I'm assuming I can make the transfer to a deli cup with water now, or should I give it another day? Here is how I found him tonight at the edge of the petri dish:
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Here is a close up!
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I forgot to mention I pulled a third clutch this morning - 8 eggs, most look good. So the progression has been:
2012-07-14 - 5 eggs, 4 good, 1 tad
2012-07-24 - 6 eggs, 2 good, ... (I think they are all molding over)
2012-07-31 - 8 eggs, ...
I see another data plot coming in the future!
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It's been a while - so I'll post a quick update. The tad from the previous post did not survive hatching. It appeared to die some time after hatching, but I left in in a cup just in case. The images you saw previously were the last ones before it died.
2012-07-14 - 5 eggs, 4 good, 1 tad died immediately after hatching
2012-07-24 - 6 eggs, 2 good, none developed
2012-07-31 - 8 eggs, 6 good, 4 developing well, 1 hatched
2012-08-08 - 7 eggs, 5 good, 5 developing well
2012-08-12 - 5 eggs
The first tad from 7/31 hatched today. It's fairly sluggish, seemed lethargic in the petri dish after hatching (happend some time during the day today). This week and next looks to be a pretty active week! I'm going to restart the daily development shots on the next batch of eggs now that I am back. I'd like to get a good day by day progression built out on the same clutch rather than stitching together multiple images from different clutches.
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Great thread here, very interesting to watch the progress. Thanks!
Azureus - Imitators "Cainarachi Valley" - Leucomelas - Black Jeans
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Been crazy busy at work so not much frog time other than viv maintenance, feeding and ... tad rearing! I've got 5 tads in the water and developing nicely. I'll try to get more details on the logs I have been manually keeping on clutch / egg / tad development this weekend (hopefully). So far, the pair has produced a clutch per week with about 5 eggs on average per clutch.
I am starting over (yet again) with the egg progression photos. I had been tracking the development of an untreated clutch (no methylene blue) for about 2 weeks but none of the eggs survived. I've resumed treatment on a subsequent clutch and they seem to be developing nicely, so I'll begin the photo log again with the next clutch.
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Well I finally caught the male calling. I was surprised how mechanical it sounded - almost like a muffled cell phone on vibrate. I had to be right next to the vivarium to hear it. Here is a somewhat fuzzy before and during shot from his session:
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Here's a wider angle image with the female in the foreground.
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Hi Jim,
How are your tads progressing? Your first tads were from 8/20, almost 2 months, so they should be getting close to morphing out? Do you mind my asking how you are raising them? Individual cups, or communally? I love your pix of Little Spot and Big Spot--you are a good photographer. I have 4 azureus, got them as tiny guys several months ago, they are definitely juvies now, growing like weeds.
Keep on with the great photos!
Diane
P. Terribilis orange, R. Imitator Cainarachi Valley, D. Leucomelas, D. Auratus, D. Azureus, P. vittatus, D. cobalts, D.Oyapok, Bombina Orientalis
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Thanks Diane! We brought ours home in January and they were about 1/2 inch - you're right - they grow fast!
The first tad has some nice back legs and bulges on either side for his front legs. I have about a dozen total...I have been documenting their progress poorly in a spreadsheet with the hope of pulling together a visualization of the different clutches development over time. I'll see if I can get my rear in gear and throw something together. In the meantime, here's a shot from a few days ago of the oldest tad (his front leg bulges are quite a bit bigger today):
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I have been raising them individually in deli cups. About 1" of "tad tea" using prime to treat Austin tap water and then I use Tetra Blackwater Extract. I have been feeding them a combination of crushed algae pellets and NLS cichlid pellets - seemed like a good nutritional balance based on the listed ingridients. I thought about a communal tank, but I got worried when I saw the big disparity in size within a clutch, so I started separating them. This may become problematic; I don't have a frog room or a rack and these little guys are prolific! Perhaps the armoire in the guest room will become tad-central I initially changed the water every few days, but I have stopped that and changed to topping off evaporative losses and they seem to be doing well.
I hit a rough patch from late August to mid September with egg development issues. I had suspended MB treatment (separate post) for a while and lost a few clutches. I resumed and things seem to be better.
I setup a 2.5 Gallon tank and brought one of the younger tads to my daughter's preschool and the class is morphing that one out. I'm using a mini turtle dock for this one to haul out - we'll see how that goes:
http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDeta ... SearchID=5
The kids got a kick out of it, but I think they were expecting a bull frog sized tad...one little kid said "where is it? I can't see it!" When I pointed it out he said "That's it? It's small!" They are having fun with it though - my daughter and I made up a flip book for the class on topics like where the frogs are from, what they eat, how fast they grow, how we setup the vivarium, how we mist, how we planted. We took that when we dropped off the tadpole and had a 20 minute discussion with the kids in her class.
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Jim-Thanks for the quick reply, and the picture! That is awesome. I recently had my first morph out--an imitator-it was SO COOL to watch the tad grow, etc, day by day. He came oow about 3 weeks ago, and it seems like a little miracle! He is definitely a mini-me to his parents. The imitators are so small, I couldn't imagine anything smaller, but...he is spot on a perfect little model of his parents, only about 1/3 their size! We have another tad imitator in a film can, should morph out in about 2 more weeks. Cool!
I also have a proven pair of leucs who have been "doing their thing" lately, and keep hoping to find a big ole mess of eggs one day soon. They laid about 3 weeks ago, but the eggs weren't right/I think they didn't get fertilized And my auratus, well they are growing like crazy, more than an inch long so I am hoping to hear calling soon! I think I may have gotten lucky, cause they APPEAR to be a trio of 1.2. Wouldn't that be nice?
I am so glad that you provided your daughter's pre-school with a tadpole! That is great, and I can guarantee you, your daughter will remember that, with fond memories! My kids are grown now, 22, 25, and 26, and they occasionally tell me about their memories of being young, and that would definitely be one of them! They tell me about things they remember that made a big impression, and frequently it's an "oh yeah" moment, I hadn't thought of it in years, and then they reminded me and it comes flooding back!
Diane
P. Terribilis orange, R. Imitator Cainarachi Valley, D. Leucomelas, D. Auratus, D. Azureus, P. vittatus, D. cobalts, D.Oyapok, Bombina Orientalis
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Sounds like you are gearing up for a tad explosion! How exciting! The entire process has been fascinating. It is tempting to expand to more viv's, but I think we have our hands full right now. I'm in trouble though - my daughter does not want to give up any of the tads, and she has said that she wants to keep all the little frogs when the tadpoles grow up...
This has been great watching the frogs grow up with the kids. I do hope they remember! It was funny how excited the entire school got about the tadpole. They apparently brought the kids from other classrooms by to take a look.
My son (2.5) is still confused and calls the tadpoles "fish" (each kid has a shelldweller tank in their room). My daughter routinely says the frogs are her favorite pet, but then I remind her about her gold ocellatus male and she says "oh, he's my favorite." She thinks he's trying to kiss her when he charges the glass and attacks her finger. They love hand misting, dumping the flies in the vivarium and "trying" to spot the frogs (it was harder when the frogs were little - not much of a challenge these days). And man do they LOVE the isopod cultures! We're raising oranges and giant canyons. I actually had to make a "local" culture of WC pill bugs just for the kids.
It's a good bit of work, but I think keeping all these different animals teaches good life lessons to the kids - observing life cycles, caring for animals, understanding habitat requirements, observing wildlife around us, appreciating nature. It's amazing to me that even a toddler and preschooler can get really engaged.
Good luck with your vivs - can't wait to see all the froglet pics!
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This is a great thread! Just read all the way through, I will be following this one.
Alex
Just Starting....
Making a Viv for 2-3 Azureus
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Yes..this is an awesome thread. Thanks Jim !
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Thanks guys! I appreciate the nice comments - now you are making me feel guilty for not starting up another daily photo log of an egg developing I suppose I'll get started on this week's batch. This has been a lot of fun watching first the frogs and now the tadpoles grow. Just tonight the entire family was gathered around looking at multiple clutches of tads and their relative differences in size. The transformation from egg to tadpole to frog still amazes me to this day despite knowing what is coming. It truly is one of the most fascinating development cycles!
Here's an updated photo of the oldest tad. The egg was deposited on 7/31 and hatched in mid August. The photo from the prior post was taken on 10/8. This is a photo from tonight:
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It's hard to see in this top lit photo, but it looks like its front legs are pretty developed behind a flap of skin. If it is backlit, it looks like you can see through the skin in between its elbows and body. It's hard to get the tad to stay still though when I try to back light it. I was able to get it side lit so you can see the spotting pattern developing:
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What a difference a week makes. So this tadpole is about two months along post-hatch, 2.5 months since deposition. It's back legs look pretty symmetrical so far, so hopefully no development issues. Can't wait for the front legs to emerge!
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First front leg is out! Milestones are speeding up. Guess I better prep for a froglet...
This the same tadpole from above, deposited on 7/31, hatched on 8/15. Today is 10/17, so this is 61 days post-hatch if my math is right Here is the full body shot:
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And I couldn't resist a shot of the freshly freed front leg:
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Do you have the cup sloped ?
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Not yet - I'll rig something up tonight. I have about an inch of water in the cup - should I start dropping the water level as well?
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Yep...they need to crawl out very soon after they pop fronts. Get your grow-out container ready too.
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Thanks! I was just searching around for grow-out options. I was thinking small shoebox containers - at the volume of eggs being generated, I think I need a stackable solution. I think I have my research topic for the evening...
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