Tadpoles

[CHOMPERS]

My swimming pool has been serving as my pond for several years and tadpoles are a regular occupant. I just completed my first cycle of them which had morphed into toads. Most fish prefer frog tadpoles over the taste of 'toadpoles'. The last of the first batch of toadpoles are morphing and the vast majority have entered the world to become bird and snake food. The pond is again ready for a new population of tadpoles. For some reason, if there is a high population of tadpoles already in a body of water, the frogs and toads will go elsewhere to lay their eggs. I had interfered with the laying of frog eggs, and the following night toads had laid claim to the pond. I decided to remove the toad eggs in hopes the frogs would return.

I am giving an effort to raise these for feeders. This can be duplicated by harvesting eggs in the wild. The eggs do not carry parasites or disease so the tadpoles will make good feeders.

 

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In the above picture, the female toads are releasing their eggs. The eggs are the black stringy mass in the water. The male stays clinged to the female until she lays her eggs. I was not sure if the males mated with the females or if they hung on and fertilized the eggs as they were laid. I harvested these eggs as they were being released and it turned out that they had not been fertilized yet. Other batches that I harvested were viable though.

 

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This is the tool that I had used to gather the eggs. In the past I used a turkey baster, but it tends to damage some of the eggs.

The egg strands are the black mass but are hard to see in the picture.

 

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Here is a good picture of the eggs as I harvested them.

 

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Here is a good view of what they look like. I filled this bucket about three inches full of eggs.

 

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To hatch the eggs, they need plenty of oxygen or they will die. The biggest problem I have encountered is that the eggs easily clump together and will suffocate the inner embryos. In nature, they are spread out among vegetation so that water can circulate between the eggs. In a bucket, they sink to the bottom. If they are left in the bucket, the dying eggs and embryos will kill the survivors.

I have had success with spreading the eggs out between numerous containers. I have also had success using a DIY brine shrimp hatchery to hatch high densities of eggs. The eggs must be removed from the hatchery after 24 hours or they will die. The eggs hatch after 12-18 hours.

 

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Here is one of my egg containers. With the eggs spread out, they will hatch on their own. If the too many eggs are added to a container, the tadpoles that hatch will die from the ammonia produced by the dead eggs. Baby tadpoles normally eat algae in the pond but will also eat dead fish, dead tadpoles, etc. I feed them fish food and they do just fine. Their growth rate is directly proportional to how much they eat. From the same batch of eggs, if separated and fed at different rates, you can cause the batches to morph several weeks apart.

 

[js302]

what do they need to be fed on when very young and as they develop?

 

[bigspizz]

You just dumed the bucket in a big tank? and they adhere by themselves? That is pure science my man nice!

 

[CHOMPERS]

what do they need to be fed on when very young and as they develop?

Whatever you give them. They will eat any kind of fish food. I have been giving them Purina Game Fish Chow because I have so much of it.