# tapdole forever??



## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

Hi!

I think I have an unusual case at home an I wanted to see if here someone knows something!

Well, on september I had a tad that popped his front leggs really early, and really small, there was no time for the typical bulge preceding the appearence of the front legs..I was suspecting an sls case..but I was wrong this time! the front legs continued on growing outside the body and became normal sized, nothing that I've seen before..and here is the strange thing, he is still in the water! it's really weird, becasuse it doesn't look at all like a tapdole close to morph, but neither like a normal tad, it's kind of lost in between..

This is how he looked in beggining september:










You can see that it looks a bit weird..

And this is how it looks right now:










There is an obvious change, but it's also obvious that it's not a normal tad, now it's I would say about 8 months in water. There's already some months that it didn't change at all, and never stopped eating like an ordinary tad. There's no special condition that affected it on it's devolopment, a lot of brothers from him morphed already many months before as very healthy froglets..

does anybody know something about this? and there is something I could do to help him morph? if not I am gonna keep it like a four legged fish otherwise it looks strong and healthy and it's really curious to see this strange "in between" animal, for example it lost all it's typical tapdole fear, and never get's scared for anything..very curious!

greetings!


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## billschwinn (Dec 17, 2008)

Has it had regular water changes?


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## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

billschwinn said:


> Has it had regular water changes?


not really, just filling when it was evaporating, but like all it's brothers (more than 20 that came perfectly) and all the froglets from other species that I usually rase, and it's the first time that I ever see that

greetings!


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## FrogNick (May 3, 2009)

There have been tads live for a couple of years without morphing out.


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## Elliot (Apr 6, 2011)

What are the temps you are keeping him at? The temps usually have a lot to do with how fast the tadpole morphs.


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Forever tads

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/43776-r-i-p-my-2-year-old-tad.html


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## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

Elliot said:


> What are the temps you are keeping him at? The temps usually have a lot to do with how fast the tadpole morphs.


around 73-74, but as I said I don't think it's a relevant factor on this case, because the temp stays same for all the tads I keep!



frogface said:


> Forever tads
> 
> http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/43776-r-i-p-my-2-year-old-tad.html


Thanks!

my case looks very similar to some posted for some user in this post, he has also an azureus tad! so for what I've read, it could be related with a thyroid problem..I really don't know what to do, Ed comments that even exposing the tad to it could not be at the end good enough..well, for the moment I am gonna keep it like this, it doesn't look it's gonna change soon so if I do something different I'll keep updated

thanks for comments!


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## PeanutbuttER (Jan 1, 2011)

Well, dang it's been a while since I've been on here...

But yeah, I actually was sitting in a medical lecture this morning about thyroid and they brought this up. Specifically that tadpoles with a complete lack of thyroid remain tadpoles forever, tadpoles with normal thyroid develop normally, and tadpoles with excess thyroid develop rapidly but are "miniature" (as it were). I thought that was awesome and wanted to share (looks like at least Ed already knew about it though). I wonder if somehow your tadpole is displaying the frog-equivalent of cretinism. Cool stuff, thanks for sharing 

and just to have the link: Cretinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


**and looking at my post now I realize this is a 2 month old bump...so, how's he doing? Did he ever morph out?


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## billygunn (Nov 1, 2010)

wow 2 yrs being a tadpole. im having the same issue with some E. anthonyi but mine havent formed legs. they have been tadpoles for 8-9 months now. i just got another clutch so im going to try something different. my anthonyi are the only darts thats done this everything else morphs out fine.


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## volcano23000 (Feb 22, 2012)

I would totally pay for this thing!


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## Fantastica (May 5, 2013)

At the zoo I volunteer at, they have tadpoles that they collected last year that still have yet to even grow legs. Would love to see a solution to this. May try raising the temperature a bit.


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## Raccoon (Mar 11, 2013)

that is awesome a tadpole fish, but im prob thinking that it will die becouse of this condition. ;( keep us updated


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## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

Hi guys!

well in some point after writnig this post, I added to his water some really small amounts of tiroxin. It didn't look to have any effect on him. After stopping this "treatment", several weeks later, he stopped eating, and started getting really skinny, looking really bad, but didn't die. At some point, he started loosing his tail, really slowly, much slower than in a normal tad, but his face and mouth stayed looking a lot like a tad.
Some weeks later, he had almost no tail, but looked really week. He was always at this moment very close to the surface, and I left him in a leaf litter container with some springs. I didn't see him anymore so I assume he is dead, actually he still had a tapdole mouth. I made a photo of him at this point:



You can see it looked a bit weird. I would say the tiroxin treatment is not related with what happened later, but who knows. In some point it had to end!

Thanks for reading!


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