# Tadpole death



## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

For the last two months Ive been having extremely poor luck with my tadpoles. They seem to be coming out small, (compared to one clutch I had about a month ago, which are all doing great). So, theyre coming out small then about 75% eventually peter out and kick the bucket. No idea why but they seem to be doing fine then I skip a day and four are dead. 
-Filtered water, with a minute amount of methyl blue. ( I started that after a month of problems )
-Each tadpole is in a small section of a nail box. 
-I dont do a lot of water changes just cause it seems like they crash right after I change. 
-Eds Fly meat tadpole powder.
Any suggestions?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Skip a day of what...?

The first tads I ever raised (Mantella aurantiaca) also seemed to die off after a water change.
My turquoize and bronze auratus tads seem real frail when they first hatch...seem to do better with as little disturbance as possible. This is drasticly different from my six-point auratus tads, which you could practicly sprinkle salt on and still have them turn out good.
What species are you working with?


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

Skip a day of "watching over them." In other words every thing seems fine one day then I relax a little and skip a day of watching them and when I come back three or four have kicked it.
Ive got a group (1:3F) of citronellas that have been putting out one clutch a week for the last three months. Ive also had the same problems with luecs but not as bad rate of loss.
Thanks for the help.


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

Maybe they are hatching too early, tincs and leucs take about 2 weeks to hatch. If you can see little blood red gills on them they are hatching too soon. How soon after they hatch are they dying? How much are you feeding them? 
You mentioned filtered water, I'm assuming filtered from the tap, not filtered an aquarium/carbon filter, I've heard bad things about carbon filtration. 
I raise all my tincs and leucs in large communal containers and rarely do water changes. I feed them a ton, and the tads get huge. 

Ed


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

One or tow clutches have come out of the egg early. They didn't do too well but one of those two I had to cut loose because they capsules were deplating. Ive been keeping the tadpoles separate so as to keep better track of them. As for feeding I generally dont feed a huge amount so that the water doesn't foul.
The next few batches I have I will put them in a ten gallon and up the feeding.


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

hey ed,

please elaborate on carbon. most r.o. units have a carbon pre-filter and i've noticed that most 'spring water' available says it's been r.o.ed. does rebuilding your water (r.o. right, etc) correct the problem, or does it even apply to r.o.?


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

What do you supplement the parent’s food with? How often?


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

I'm not encouraging you to switch to larger community enclosures; in fact it might be a bad move until you figure out why the tads are dying, because it is a little tougher to monitor individuals. The large enclosures just work really well for me and I do not have to have bunch of small jars around.

I've had poor luck with tads that I have had to "help" hatch and do not do it anymore. If they do not hatch, they do not hatch. 

Are you treating your water other than adding methyl blue, I mean adding oak leaves or black water tonic? This can help tads with fungal infections and might be safer than methyl blue. 

I'd also try raising the tads in glass jars and see if that works better. My large containers are plastic (Rubbermaid under bed storage containers) but I have heard of people having problems with some plastic containers. 

Hope this helps! 
Ed

Mack, not my personal experience, but I have heard of problems with tads when people use carbon filtration (aquarium type) I do not think the same applies to RO water, in fact I use RO (bottled) and do not have issues with tads. Maybe it is the amount of exposure to carbon in an aquarium setup???? 
We are looking at RO units now, because we spend so much on bottled water for both drinking and tads. 

Ed


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

thanks ed. i love my ro unit, and it's much cheaper in the not-so-long-run. i know from fishkeeping that carbon filtration has a bad rap for planted aquaria, and more generally it "soaks up" nasties until it's "full", then starts to release them further messing up the water. can you tell my major was liberal arts, not science? but seriously, i had not heard anything about carbon with frogs and wonder if it's the same issues or something else? can anybody eloborate further?


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

I actually used aged treated tap water for my tads over RO. RO water can be bad for tads unless minerals and etc are put back into the water. I only use RO for misting.


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

hey kyle,

i'm not sure exactly when a post is considered 'hijacked', and i don't want to make anyone angry, so was a bit reluctant to add this, but think it is important. i did notice you said treated and aged tap water (not even an option here with water quality issues from the mississippi), but feel like reitterating that TREATED is important. in the 'good ol days' public water was treated with chlorine, which evaporates out of tap water fairly quickly. older aquarium books recommend aged tap water, but now many places use chloramine which does not 'age out' quickly so definitely use a water conditioner like kent or amquel.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Yup exactly, I treat and age, and then add home made black water extract to that. So far it has worked great.


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

We used aged tap water for years but would run into intermittent problems with the tads, generally in the later stages of development. We had the water analyzed and found some things that might be harmful to the tads. The water is OK for drinking, but who knows what chlorine, chloramines, and fluoride can do to the tads, so we started using bottled water months ago. We realize that the initial outlay for the RO unit would be recouped pretty quickly, we are just trying to figure out what to buy. 

To get back to the original post…. It sounds like these tads died pretty soon after hatching. 
It still sounds like they are hatching a bit early, I also wonder if there is an issue with the methyl blue and the plastic containers. Is anyone else using this combo???
Ed


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

Thanks for all the input.
I use filtered tap water which Im pretty sure uses carbon as the media, (the unit is not mine). 
I do have an excellent RO unit that Im waiting on new cartriges for. Im going to employ this for the misting system on the frogs and will start using for the tads as well. How do you rebuild RO water? 

I can also start using oak leaves instead of methyl blue. Just dry them and stick them in the RO water for the tads? Could I just put them in a nylon bag and put that in my misting sump, so the frogs will get that too and also use that water for the tads?

The methyl blue I just started using sparingly only because of the problems Ive been having with the tads. 

Ive been using the plastic deli cups that I get crickets in to house the tads and recently switched to the compartmened box to keep better track of whats going on with each tad. I have the room to set up a lot of the deli cups and can keep each tad individually in those instead of the smaller compartments. 

Ive only assisted a couple of tads hatch and they generally didn’t fair well but I have had a couple of clutches hatch too early on their own. The parents are supplemented Rep-cal or Herptivite twice weekly and Im thinking I need to up that to three times a week. Can you over do it? 

Today I had a clutch of three emerge from the egg and I believe this was right on time, not too early or late. I put those three in a cycled ten gallon with a sponge filter and am going to start heavy feeding. I was a little concerned that two of them didn’t appear to be very active, so we’ll see how they do.

Jeff


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

plastics can leach chemicals for various periods of time and can cause tadpole death. If you switched rearing containers, then I would look at that first. 

Ed


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

Any thoughts on starting tads in glass jars and then moving them into plastic containers once they are larger? Im not too keen on having 30 glass jars in my house. I could but...

Any ways, today a clutch of three popped out way too early. Could it be the parents diet?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I have reared them in mason jars and its not too difficult. 
The question is still are they hatching early and at what size. I typically leave the tads in the petri dish for a couple of days in very shallow water before moving them to the new container. 
If the adults have been producing heavily for a lengthy period of time, then there may be a depletion of fat soluable vitamins as well as other required micronutrients and a rest period may resolve the issue. 

Ed


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

Ok, so,
Ive been using the lids of cottage cheese containers for the laying sites which can't hold too much water but you say you leave the "fresh" tads in the petri dish for a while after hatching. My frogs have a tendancy to muck up the laying site right after laying, so what was fairly sterile becomes not so sterile and my fear is that this is having adverse effects on the eggs. Would you recommend thorough cleaning once I remove the lid from the tank? 
Thanks so much for all your help, I know that these questions can become redundant once youve been a dart fanatic for a while.
Jeff


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## TPopovich (May 7, 2004)

Since everything was fine a couple months ago, what are the tank temps as well as where your raising the eggs and tads now vs when everything was fine ?.


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## TPopovich (May 7, 2004)

I've been using 4 oz glass votives I get at a craft store for .50 a piece and swear by them. I can fit 30 or so in a rubbermaid storage container. The only bad thing about it is I have to change the water every 2-3 days but as far as the size of the tads and the health, I haven't had any problems.


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

To be honest (with myself), I can't say that my citro tads have ever done well. Last year only one egg was raised up to a frog and he is still healthy, this year I have probably lost around 75% of all my clutches. If I had to guess I would say I have 10 tads left of 40 eggs from three months of laying. Ive probably lost 25% of that in egg stage, 25% to early hatches and 50% in the first week of free swimming. 
I am going to change the plastic containers and laying sites to all glass to eliminate the contaminated plastics variable and use RO water with Black Water Extract to eliminate that variable. 
Diet seems fine, crickets and FF's plus vitamin supplements. Unless anyone knows anything bad about Herptivite or Repcal.
Thanks


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## bgexotics (Feb 24, 2004)

I bought clear plastic 9 oz cups from Sam's club. They are cheap and disposable, so I don't have to worry about contamination issues. I haven't had any problem with them so far after 4 months. In fact I have not had any tadpole deaths since switching to doing water changes twice a week and feeding Frog and Tadpole Bites.


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## Jeff R (Jul 1, 2005)

So, plastic contamination occurs after using a container for a prolonged time?


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