# Two month old tadpole died



## Becky H (Mar 6, 2008)

I have my first few clutches of eggs starting in June with my Patricias being the first. Of that first clutch, two have all four limbs and are in morphing containers absorbing their tales. The clutch just after this one, ten days later, has had two of the tads die just after they developed the tiny back legs. They had developed some kind of slime, blue/gray tint.

My tads all are in individual containers with java moss, almond leaf, some oak leave and I use treated aged tap water. I have been feeding them tad bites and black worms from the fish store (they all love them, eat them quite hastily). When the first one got sick, I added a little dash of aquarium salt that I saw suggested on a post somewhere. I generally use the turkey baster to clean out the bottom of the dishes and add new water about once a week.

Any ideas of what is going wrong and what I can do if it happens again?


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## chesney (Jan 18, 2007)

Hey Becky,
Sorry to hear about your tad! I know you have put a lot of work into them. I've never heard of adding salt to tad water. Seems to me that it would kill them, but maybe someone here knows some tricks that I don't and would be willing to help. Good luck with the rest of those guys though! BTW, I'm still waiting for our next visit.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Aquarium salt is not normal salt Lisa.


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## Becky H (Mar 6, 2008)

The box of aquarium salt says: "adds essential electrolytes, improves gill function, promotes disease recovery". It is for fresh water aquariums and also is used as a "general tonic and stress reducer". It says to use a rounded teaspoon per 5 gallons, but I only used a few pellets in the small container.

I used this when I had bettas and they would get sick and it worked every time.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Never heard of anyone else using salt before either.

Sounds a little "scary" to add in a small, closed evironment such as a tad container as opposed to cirulating fish tank water...


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## chesney (Jan 18, 2007)

I'm with you, it does sound a little scary, but who knows? Becky, did you add salt to any of the other tad cups? I would be curious to know if it might have been beneficial to them in areas such as: possibly speed up morphing time, producing larger/healthier tads, etc.


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## Becky H (Mar 6, 2008)

First, let me say that I did not add any of the aquarium salt till after the first one got sick.

Then I started putting a very small amount of the salt in the gallon jug of water as it aged, along with a water conditioner and a drop or two of blackwater extract. So all my tads have a little of the salt. I have only lost the two and that was after they got the slime.

My bettas were in fish bowls that did were not aerated. 

I just cannot remember which PDF forum I read with this suggestion. 

My two oldest tads are very healthy and have their front and back legs and their tales, but I have a question. One of these tads stays out of the water most of the time and the other rarely leaves the water. Is this normal? The are both in morphing containers at an angle and can climb out or in the water easily. The one in the water has already turned yellow and the other is just now starting to change color.


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## Becky H (Mar 6, 2008)

And to answer your question Lisa about speeding up morphing time, when I started feeding them the black worms, they all grew bigger much faster. But keep in mind that I am still on my first few clutches. 

The first to eat them were the youngest ones, the older ones seemed more wary. But once they all learned what they were, they would tackle one and swim around fast and the worm would be dangling from their mouth for several minutes before it was consumed. If tads can look excited, I would say they are when I give them the worms. They get more animated. I would leave several worms in the bowl and most are gone by the second day, all are gone by day 3. Then I give them the tad bites. I tried flake fish food but never saw the tads eating it and it made the water foul quickly.

The two oldest tads that just showed their front legs in the past week were from a clutch laid on June 5th, making them just over 10 weeks. Is that about normal?


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

i have to agree with others here i havent heard of salt with tads.

heres the link to the MSDS for a commonly available aquarium salt (the kind i believe you are describing). it should have a breakdown of whats in it , but i dont have adobe reader so i cant tell you.

james


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

If it were me, I would cut out the oak leaves---some kinds of oak leaves are not as good as others in tad rearing (I wish I could tell you which---Ed remembers, I'm sure) and also the blackworms, which can carry diseases sometimes---you could send a sample of them to a lab to check for harmful microbes/parasites. Live foods are great, but sometimes they bring their own issues to the table, so be sure they are free of anything harmful.
There is also a certain brand of tadpole bites, which are widely marketed, that may have as much as 33% ash. My tadpoles won't eat them when there is other food available.
Also, I would use spring water instead of tap water if you can afford it. Tap water, even aged up to 4 weeks to be safe, has a myriad of chemicals and microbes that can't be removed except by extensive filtration methods involving carbon filtration, ozonation and distillation.


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## NathalieB (Apr 23, 2007)

I use salt very often with good results when I see some kind of bacterial infection develop with my tads (they get some white fungus-like spots and have trouble not floating to the surface) in most cases this has worked great.

I use normal sea-salt for cooking (iodine-free) just a little pinch in their container when I see the tads develop first symptoms.

I would always try salt first before adding any other chemicals. salt is used in freshwater aquaria quite often in small amounts.
I would be faster to "blame" the water-conditioner then the salt


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## ErickG (Nov 28, 2004)

Becky H said:


> And to answer your question Lisa about speeding up morphing time, when I started feeding them the black worms, they all grew bigger much faster. But keep in mind that I am still on my first few clutches.
> 
> The first to eat them were the youngest ones, the older ones seemed more wary. But once they all learned what they were, they would tackle one and swim around fast and the worm would be dangling from their mouth for several minutes before it was consumed. If tads can look excited, I would say they are when I give them the worms. They get more animated. I would leave several worms in the bowl and most are gone by the second day, all are gone by day 3. Then I give them the tad bites. I tried flake fish food but never saw the tads eating it and it made the water foul quickly.
> 
> The two oldest tads that just showed their front legs in the past week were from a clutch laid on June 5th, making them just over 10 weeks. Is that about normal?


As was said by Susan, try converting to spring/bottled water if you can afford it for the last two weeks of the tadpole phase. Do full water changes if you can also spare the time to do so. I'm assuming that the varied foods will foul up your water a lot sooner and as the tadpoles age, they will have more waste. Seems like there's no lack of protein in your diet, but just to preserve the water quality a bit, try feeding with just pure spirulina. If you can get to a GNC, they sell them in capsules that you can simply open up. A pinch of that stuff daily to coat the surface will be good. 
I previously wrote on another thread that speeding up the tadpole process is not always a good thing. Just make sure that they are eating well and progressing nicely. Seems like the early June clutch is on schedule. I had 3 froglets out of the water a week ago from the same time frame. 
Best of luck!


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

NathalieB said:


> I use salt very often with good results when I see some kind of bacterial infection develop with my tads (they get some white fungus-like spots and have trouble not floating to the surface) in most cases this has worked great.
> 
> I use normal sea-salt for cooking (iodine-free) just a little pinch in their container when I see the tads develop first symptoms.
> 
> ...


I would try to solve the issue of the fungus - the causes.

That way, you wouldn't need to resort to using the salt to treat the initial problem.


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