# Moldy Leuc Tadpoles



## KHerz (Mar 8, 2016)

Hello, I am new to the world of tadpole rearing and very new to this forum (just joined this afternoon). I am volunteering in a herpetology lab where the resident leucomelas frogs have been laying like crazy. I finally had two tadpoles hatched out and set up, but both died today. One had been doing well for a week, but the other had only been hatched for four days.

Their set up consisted of approximately a 16oz deli cup with a punctured lid to pour out water for water changes. The water was mostly RO with about 1/3 tadpole tea.

I made the tadpole tea with oak leaves I got from a friend of mine who works with amphibians professionally. They were frozen to kill anything that would potentially be living on them and then thawed and placed in a milk jug that was disinfected with RO and dilute vinegar. The leaves were left to soak in RO for several days before being used. I made this tea about a month ago so I'm not sure if that would have caused the problems.

The tadpoles were being fed a light dusting of Sera Micron twice a week and water changes were being performed as needed and the day after feeding. The temperature was in the low 70s.

I am out of town, but the person who is taking care of them noticed that one had molded and died, probably during the night. The other was starting to grow mold around its mouth so he performed a water change, but it died later today. They were just fed yesterday so water changes were to be performed today anyway.

I am not exactly sure what went wrong, so I was hoping someone could give me advice. The first two pictures are of the tadpoles and their set up when they were alive. The last picture is of one with the mold. As you can tell, I took a screenshot at the time my temp was telling me that the tea appeared bad as well. In which case, I would also appreciate advice on making tadpole tea...

I was also wondering if old food could cause problems. I'm not sure how old the stuff we're using is, but that was a thought.


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

Take a look at this thread.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/73660-tadpols-mouth-fungus.html
Saprolegnia kills pretty quickly, usually within 24 hours of visually identifying the problem. It seems to affect very young tads the most. 4 days hatched is a little early to be feeding. I would make new tea with Indian Almond leaves if possible. You can boil 1 leaf in a quart of water if you're in a rush. I just let them soak for a day or two. I break the leaf into about 1" square pieces. Each tad container gets one piece, it will develop beneficial bacteria that the tad will feed on. I only perform water changes if there is a problem.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

With the tadpole tea you use, why do you add vinegar to it? 

There are a lot of recipes for tadpole tea and the ingredients range from peat moss to Indian almond leaves (Terminalia catappa) to red alder cones but pretty much any source of humic acids will work. You could even use red oak acorn shells. 

However treatments like tadpole tea are often used to correct issues that originate with the husbandry of the adults. 

What supplements are being used with the adults? 

On a total aside how often is the sera micron replaced? 

some comments 

Ed


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## KHerz (Mar 8, 2016)

Ed said:


> With the tadpole tea you use, why do you add vinegar to it?
> 
> There are a lot of recipes for tadpole tea and the ingredients range from peat moss to Indian almond leaves (Terminalia catappa) to red alder cones but pretty much any source of humic acids will work. You could even use red oak acorn shells.
> 
> ...


Sorry for the confusion, the vinegar was to help disinfect the milk jug. I rinsed it out before making the tadpole tea. It was also very diluted.
Thanks for the advice tea advice!
The adults are currently receiving fruit flies dusted with a mixture of herptivite, repcal D3, and folic acid.
I just started in January so I don't know how often new food is purchased typically, but I do believe this container is expired so I will certainly be replacing that. Have you had good results with sera micron or would you recommend other products?


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

Ed asked about your supplementation, because quite often frogs are not getting Vitamin A in a usable form. Tadpoles of frogs that are deficient in Vitamin A are often not healthy.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/79570-vitamins-help-egg-fertility.html


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

One of the more recent "discoveries" in captive anuran husbandry is that post-metamorphic frogs have issues with vitamin A deficiency as they either don't convert beta carotene to active vitamin A or poorly convert it (there are arguments for both sides). It generally takes awhile to show up after metamorphosis as the frog has to deplete the vitamin A stores in the liver (from the tadpole feeding). 
As a result it isn't uncommon for adult frogs whose primary source of vitamin A is beta carotene to produce eggs and newly hatched tadpoles that are also vitamin A deficient. This can play out in several ways such as immunosuppression and at metamorphosis an increase in "spindly leg syndrome". 

The addition of more biotin in the diet is an indication that there have been issues with fertility and development in the past. That is one of the older methods used to deal with spindly leg in the frogs however its more likely that the frogs are still deficient in vitamin A. As a consequence there are several routes to correct this (and I know it will have to go through some form of review process as your at an institution.). The first and easiest is to simply utilize a supplement that contains preformed vitamin A such as Repashy calcium plus or Dendrocare. Alternatively you can get the vitamin A powder that Repashy makes or use a human grade dry vitamin A supplement to dust the feeder insects once a week. 

In general the use of the complete supplement and then one-four times a month additional vitamin A dusting tends to resolve the issues pretty quickly. 
There is a good bit of information on this here on the site. 

With respect to the food, I've had good success with a lot of different food sources but I tend to prefer a good quality flake fish food for convenience but you should replace it about every six months. As with the supplements store it in a cool dry area away from heat and humidity. 

some comments 


Ed


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## CharValley (Feb 29, 2016)

I know this is going to get a response from some but I have raised the banded leuc tadpoles for about 2 years now, going on 3 and I used to breed auratus back in the 80's. But I bred tropical fish for some 20 years both fresh and saltwater species.

I won't go into how I raised the auratus tads since it is a very old method but with my leuc tadpoles I don't make tea and I have never had the molding issue that you described.

I use a purified/distilled water and add a product called "Blackwater Extract". I believe it is probably very close to the same effect as the "tea" but is available in a premade liquid form at most pet stores and also from mail order at places like Black Jungle.

This product was originally used to help create a more "Dark" water or "Stained" water environment for Discus breeding as well as tetra's and other Amazon fish species. It is also used to lower the PH of the water. I also use an aerator to bubble the water and extract, mixing it together and aerating the water at least a day before use.

Using this I have never had a fungus problem. The only losses I have had were due to uncontrolled temperature fluctuations (spring weather) and tadpoles that already appeared weak or poorly developed.

The main thing is to never over feed, a tiny amount of food is all that is needed. With your newly hatched tads little specks of flake food is more than enough and I don't give tad pellet food (one or two pellets and then slowly increased once they start growing) until the second week. Don't starve them but there should not be left over food when you go to change the water the next day. 

The other thing I do that I believe is very important is to change the water once a day, two days max. Fresh water and removing as much debris as possible is important to keep fungus and other bacteria from developing and infecting your tadpoles.


Remember that the warmer the water temperature the faster that fungus and bacteria will reproduce. I try to keep the water in the mid 70's. Tadpoles also seem to be bigger as froglets when allowed to develop as a tadpole longer in this cooler temperature water.

I use the vitamin supplement "Dendrocare" solely. I tried using the different vitamins and supplement's that were recommended but had a disaster loosing over half of my frogs one year to what was described to me as a vitamin overdose. So I started using only the "Dendrocare" product as a daily dusting and now have breeding Leuc's that I raised from tadpoles (over a year old) that were fed only this supplement. I have not seen any indications of "skinny leg" or other health issues with the adults or their offspring.

I am not saying that my way is the best or the only way to approach your problem, it is the one that works for me. 

One thing I can tell you after years of advising people on tank and fish care is that once you find the method that works for you, don't change it and do NOT mix methods. I have seen many failed tanks because the person took the best ideas from several recommended approaches and tried to combine them. 

Take the advice that makes the most sense to you and your hobby and stick to that approach. It works for the person because they do certain things a certain way, mixing the best idea's from different strategies may not work together and turn into a major disaster.

Best of luck and I hope you find a good method that works for you and your tadpoles!

Charlie

One other thing, I don't know the actual benefit but I like to take a piece of "Japanese Ball moss" and put a piece in with each tadpole or several when I have tad's combined in one tub. It gives them a place to hide and probably allows them to feed on algae that grows on the moss. I say that because the size of the moss piece never seems to get smaller. It is also very hardy moss, I still use pieces from over a year ago. Just rinsing out debris from it for the next batch of tadpoles.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

There are valid reasons to discuss some of your points in more detail. 



Charvalley said:


> I use a purified/distilled water and add a product called "Blackwater Extract". I believe it is probably very close to the same effect as the "tea" but is available in a premade liquid form at most pet stores and also from mail order at places like Black Jungle.


Its pretty much the same. One of the reasons people began to make their own versions was that the extract can contain up to 2.5% formaldehyde. See the MSDS 
https://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&id=20012009 

You can achieve the same result by boiling peat for a fraction of the price although you may have to use a non-reactive pot designated for this purpose. 



Charvalley said:


> It is also used to lower the PH of the water.


The reduction in the pH is due to the reaction of the humic acids with the water and it can also reduce the hardness of the water not only by reacting with carbonate ions resulting in CO2 and water but it also forms insoluble salts with calcium, magnesium and some other ions. 

The same effect is going to be had to some extent by any blackwater extract/tadpole tea. 



Charvalley said:


> The main thing is to never over feed, a tiny amount of food is all that is needed. With your newly hatched tads little specks of flake food is more than enough and I don't give tad pellet food (one or two pellets and then slowly increased once they start growing) until the second week. Don't starve them but there should not be left over food when you go to change the water the next day.


There are a lot of variations in this practice. Overfeeding is a problem as it can foul the water (but see below).



Charvalley said:


> The other thing I do that I believe is very important is to change the water once a day, two days max. Fresh water and removing as much debris as possible is important to keep fungus and other bacteria from developing and infecting your tadpoles.


There are also a lot of variations in this practice and there are not a few people who never change the water in their tadpole containers and there are those who change it every day. There are valid reasons for the entire spectrum. Those who don't ever change it tend to use a larger volume of water and then allow establishment of bacteria and algae that process and convert ammonia and nitrite to nitrate but it is important to point out that the lower the pH the greater the disruption to that process but it also converts ammonia to ammonium which is also non-toxic. 

With those who don't change the eventual establishment of a biofilm also provides the tadpoles with an additional food source. 



Charvalley said:


> Remember that the warmer the water temperature the faster that fungus and bacteria will reproduce. I try to keep the water in the mid 70's.


The lower the temperature the less effectively the immune system of the tadpole will function. It should also be noted that in those species that have been studied to date, they tend to choose temperatures above those that are commonly recommended. Auratus for example choose 78 F to optimize the growth of the tadpoles.



Charvalley said:


> I tried using the different vitamins and supplement's that were recommended but had a disaster loosing over half of my frogs one year to what was described to me as a vitamin overdose


How was this determined? 



Charvalley said:


> One thing I can tell you after years of advising people on tank and fish care is that once you find the method that works for you, don't change it and do NOT mix methods. I have seen many failed tanks because the person took the best ideas from several recommended approaches and tried to combine them.


I'm going to disagree with the not mix methods suggestions. There are many many ways to achieve the same end but having people stick to a rote recipe is a problem that has caused problems in the husbandry of many animals in many situations. This can also cause problems with finding a way that works for a certain person. 



Charvalley said:


> I don't know the actual benefit


Well to start off it is a nutrient sink, and it is already a seeded substrate for many organisms that contribute to a healthy biofilm (in the old fish texts, "aufwuchs" maybe more familar). 

some comments 

Ed


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