I'm doing the same thing...

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Posted by kimhotep on April 18, 2003 at 14:20:00:

In Reply to: raising wood frog eggs/tadpoles posted by ginevive on April 18, 2003 at 06:32:38:

Wood frogs are exciting to me cause I'd never encountered them before last fall. So a few days ago, I gathered a small clump of eggs from the pond/ditch behind the house; like yours, they hatched very small, & hung (vertically!) from the egg mass for a while, as if they were dangling by invisible umbilical cords or something.

Most of them are out of the eggs now, & wiggling around; the egg mass seems to be hosting a lot of algae, so unless I hear advice otherwise, I'll leave it in there. They're in a half-filled 'critter keeper' plastic container, with water taken from the pond; I got some bottom-muck & algae-covered weedy stuff & leaves in there, also the mossy-looking floating green stuff, & duckweed. There are 2 tiny snails & a small diving beetle, a couple flatworms, & some mayfly naiads in there, as well. Of course there is also the ubiquitous things twitching through the water that are too small to really see! -this sounds crowded, but it's not; all of these denizens are near microscopic.

I removed some of the original water this morning, & added more fresh from the pond. I also took maybe a third of the tads out, & returned them to the pond; I'll do so gradually with each water change, til I'm down to a half-dozen or so. As tiny as they are (3/8 inch long?) how often ought I change out the water? There are maybe 30 in there.

& will they derive enough nutrition from the addition of pond stuff, or should I go the boiled greens & fish flakes route?

Thanks!
-Kimhotep

:I went out walking in the back on monday, trying (unsuccessfully) to track some elusive peepers. Saw a maculatum salamander and some wood frogs. There were literally millions of wood frog eggs in a series of shallow vernal pools, and a few brave individuals who were braving the chilly 60-degree air. As I approached one gaggle of wood frogs, they began calling loudly and fleeing into the water of a drying-up stream. There were so many eggs, I decided to take a small clump of about ten to observe back home. They were from a very small puddle that was actually dry when I returned yesterday, and the few eggs remaining in it looked to be in poor shape. Well, the eggs have hatched, and the tiny black 1-centimeter tadpoles are congregating around the shed eggshells. I filtered some of the original pond water they were in to remove bugs/silt and they're in that. About 6 of the ten hatched, the rest are still forming and wiggling periodically. Anyone ever keep these? I'm thinking the standard tad diet, but they are TINY... I figured they wouold grow a bit more before hatching; I figured wrong. Also, do they feed off of the discarded shell?

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