# Tadpole feeding curiousity



## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

I am just curious, when you hand raising your tads and feed your them whatever you decide to feed them, do you ever see them eat? I have been feeding forgbites and have yet to see any tad show the least bit of interest in the food in their cup. I do water changes every couple of days and there seems to be a little detritus and every once in awhile I'll see a water saturated bite left when I change the water . I know the tads are eating something since they are growing fine, but I just thought it curious that the tads don't seem interested or excited about food the way I have read some are when feeder eggs are deposited. My thought is with feeder egg excitement they go father inbetween feedings so they get "hungrier" and look forward to the eggs whereas with my feeding they have a constant supply of food so there is nothing to get worked up about. Just a curiousity and wanted to see if anyone else had experienced this.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Stace,

The only time I've seen hand raised tadpoles eat is in the communal glass tanks where I'm raising several of the Epip species....there I will see tadpoles grazing algae off the glass and munching on pieces of tadpole bites. However in fairness several of the tanks are right next to my computer desk so I look at them quite often as opposed to my tadpole cups that I check every couple of days and perform maintenance/feeding as needed.

Bill


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## rjmarchisi (Feb 16, 2004)

Just get some frozen blood worms, thaw them out and feed them to a tad with a pair of tweezers, they will latch onto them and really chow down.










Rob


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

^That's when I saw my tads eat. They love bloodworms. Speaking of which, I forgot to get some the other day... :?


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Hmm.. Ok, that's kinda what I thought. I'm not worried about not seeing them eat as I know they are eating at some time, but I think it might be fun to see it some times so maybe I'll try the bloodworm thing to have something fun to watch.


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## VTHokie (Jun 28, 2005)

I see mine eat a lot but most of the stuff I feed floats one the top, so it is easy to see them coming up to eat. I usually feed an algae mix and fish food. Within about a minute of feeding many of them come to the top to eat.


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## markc019 (Apr 12, 2005)

I feed an algea fish food as well they seem to always come up to the surface to munch!! I am going to try some blood worms NOW!!!!

~mark


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Can you get dried blood worms?


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## VTHokie (Jun 28, 2005)

Yes you can get dried blood worms. I use to feed them to my fish when I was a kid and we just got them at the pet store.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

I thought so... but thought I would ask. I may have to pick some up when I pick up my tanks tomorrow.


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## VTHokie (Jun 28, 2005)

Yeah I think I may get some my self. It comes in dried cubes.


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

That, or you can buy a vial at petco/petsmart. They're around 3 bucks and sold for bettas. The dried cubes are around $6-8 and by hikari, I think.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

I tried an experiment yesterday in two communal tanks containing either green triv or black bassleri tadpoles. I dropped in a couple of the Hikari Algae Wafers and within several minutes each disk had multiple tadpoles latched onto it munching away like crazy....

Bill

P.S. One other interesting thing I've noticed in the communal tad setup for the green trivs is that they are only 22 days post hatching but already pretty much full size and many of them have already popped back legs.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I'd be careful feeding out bloodworms. In aquatic frogs like xenopus and hymenochirus, it is a principle cause for bloating. I've heard other stories that too much is bad for fish as well.


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