# ManCreek Tads



## DanC (Mar 24, 2006)

Is it possible to raise mancreek tads away from the parents? I tried to do a search but came up empty handed. Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Dan


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

well before people realized to leave teh tads in the tank witht eh parents since they have a especialized diet, they would make a mixture of egg yolk and milk, but that was not too successful, so i am not sure what other methods have been tried on the market now adays.


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## GSXR_MURRHEE (Sep 16, 2006)

Your best bet is to feed unfertilized Pumilio eggs. I had to pull out a few tads a while back because the brom they were in had bad scale mites. I've been trying to feed them unfertilized Azureus and Leuc eggs but they don't seem to want them. From what I've heard, some people have had some success with Auratus eggs. Good luck if you try it. 

Sean


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

Pretty much no. I imagine you were looking at the one ad for such. The only time they would likely be able to be removed from the parents was when legs have popped out and they're no longer feeding.


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

MonarchzMan said:


> Pretty much no. I imagine you were looking at the one ad for such. The only time they would likely be able to be removed from the parents was when legs have popped out and they're no longer feeding.


That's not true. I've had instances where both darklands and Lomas have left a few stranded tads and I have placed them in a condiment cup and raised them in the same manner as any other tad aside from the diet. I fed them azureus eggs, but unfortunately they morphed out with SLS. As a no so big coincidence, every azureus froglet in that same time frame morphed out SLS as well, so I suspect that the SLS issues came from the azureus parents and had nothing to do with the tads themselves. I 100% believe that if I would have had good nutritional eggs (unfortuantely I don't have any auratus pairs to get eggs from) the tads would have morphed out just fine. One trick to try with very young tads is to remove the surrounding jelly and leave just the egg itself. While older tads have no trouble with the jelly, younger ones sometimes can't make it through. I will agree with the above comment that feeding pumilio eggs is best, but try what you have and hope for the best.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

I know there's been a little research on raising pumilio away from parents on other frog eggs with limited success (hence my "pretty much no"). I imagine that we'll eventually figure out how to do it with great success, but right now, it isn't exactly easy.


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Easy... no. It isn't exactly hard either, but the success is limited. I think that with a good supply of feeder eggs from a healthy source (ie an auratus pair or something like that that consistently produces good offspring) it isn't that hard


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## Corpus Callosum (Apr 7, 2007)

I wonder if and how the nutritional content of eggs varies between species.


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## GSXR_MURRHEE (Sep 16, 2006)

Lol something else I found out that works....other tadpoles. I had put in what I thought was an unfertilized Azureus egg. When I found out it wasn't I left it in with my mancreek tad just to see if it would hatch out. Sure enough it did, and within the next day the mancreek ate him!


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## AlexD (Sep 19, 2007)

LOL. Sounds tasty  . That is pretty funny.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Corpus Callosum said:


> I wonder if and how the nutritional content of eggs varies between species.


Different species have different numbers of gel coats which maybe part of the reason that some eggs are not well accepted or not accepted well by certain age groups of the tadpoles. 
There may be differences in the nutritional profiles. 

Ed


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Ed,
In theory, do you think what I said above about why the tads hatched out SLS could be correct? In summary, I fed azureus eggs from one pair of azureus which they happily took and grew all the way til they popped fronts, but all came out SLS. Coincidentally (or maybe not), all the azureus offspring that I morphed out during the same time period that came from that pair also had SLS. I theorized that the SLS concerns came from poor quality eggs from the azureus, not the fact that they were non pumilio eggs and had I been supplying eggs that were higher in quality (ie produced non SLS offspring when allowed to mature), they would have been much more successful. FYI... both the pumilio types came from parents who have produced many non SLS froglets, so likely not a parental issue.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

sbreland said:


> Ed,
> In theory, do you think what I said above about why the tads hatched out SLS could be correct? In summary, I fed azureus eggs from one pair of azureus which they happily took and grew all the way til they popped fronts, but all came out SLS. Coincidentally (or maybe not), all the azureus offspring that I morphed out during the same time period that came from that pair also had SLS. I theorized that the SLS concerns came from poor quality eggs from the azureus, not the fact that they were non pumilio eggs and had I been supplying eggs that were higher in quality (ie produced non SLS offspring when allowed to mature), they would have been much more successful. FYI... both the pumilio types came from parents who have produced many non SLS froglets, so likely not a parental issue.



One of the main/leading theories as to the causes of SLS (at least non-enviromental) in anurans is nutritional issues with the parents. There is a significant maternal investment of nutrients in the eggs and any lack in the eggs can show up in the tadpoles. I would suspect that there were issues with the nutritional profiles in the tinctorius eggs especially given the incidence of SLS in tapoles that preceded those eggs. 

I couldn't find it so it may have been lost but there was a brief discussion on one of the forums (I think caudata.org) on the use of the eggs of Cynops as an alternate food for D (Oophaga) pumilio but in that case if I remember correctly the gel coats had to be removed from the newt eggs before they would be accepted. I would suspect this maybe the case in other amphibian species. 

Ed


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Thanks Ed,
In using the azureus eggs I found I had to remove the gel coats for the pumilio tads when the tads were young or else they couldn't get through, but approximately 3/4 of the way through development I dropped one in that did have the gel coat and the tad was able to get through to the egg. I guess maybe the increase in size and strength gave it the ability to do it, but as an older tad they seemed to be able to handle the gel mass allright. Interesting finding you have there on newt eggs... not knowing much about them it seems like they might be an easier (and cheaper) source of alternate pumilio food...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

C. orientalis can be difficult to get to start to breed but other species like cb C. cyanurus, C. ensicauda ssp can be easy to breed and if kept at the right temperatures can produce a small number of eggs on a daily basis for up to several months allowing for a fairly standard eggs over a consistant period of time. 
I thought it was interesting as well and regret that I was unable to find the thread so I could refresh my memory on whether or not it worked well (I seem to remember that it did but I could be getting it mixed up with a different thread or species). 

If people are going to try cross genera egg feeding, I would suggest not using toad egg or other eggs that are documented to be toxic to other species. 


Ed


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