# My Tads are in!!!



## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

My Tads finally came in and I am more than happy! These are my first soon to be dart frogs! I Have them in plastic containers that are half way submerged in water that is beating heated to 72-75 Degrees! They are D. Auratus CR Green and Black. (My favorite color Combination!) I put them in some Distilled Water and some Java Moss. I dont have any almond leaf, but did place an order for some should be here next week. (free shipping) haha! So for the next 70 Days I will be working on the construction of their home, A 40 Gallon Breeder tank. I have a few plants now and some wood pieces that Ill be working with. still waiting for my ABG mix to come in! and I am looking for some bromeliads, I would rather buy pups so they can grow in nicely in the tank! ty and wish me luck and any tips would be greatly appreciated!


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Grats! 

Do you have any kind of dry leaf that you can toss in there? Gives them more cover and something else to chew on. Also, how is your tap water? Maybe tap with Prime water conditioner would be better than distilled. Distilled is so pure I worry that it might not be a good idea. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge will comment on that.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

At this moment no I dont have any dried leaf I can put in there , My tap water comes out foggy and white but settles clear after a few minutes x)


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Perhaps bottled drinking water then. Put in a few drops of Prime (my favorite) conditioner to get rid of chlorine and chloramine. There have been some discussions about distilled not being a good idea but I'm afraid I can't remember how it turned out. It might be that it's fine. Sorry I should keep quiet. 

You can get Prime at pet stores like Petsmart or PetCo. It's in a red and white bottle.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Though I did mix the water that they came in...


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Bluenerer said:


> Though I did mix the water that they came in...


That sounds fine then! 

I just didn't want anything to happen to your babies. Keep us posted on how they are doing. We love pictures around here.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

frogface said:


> That sounds fine then!
> 
> I just didn't want anything to happen to your babies. Keep us posted on how they are doing. We love pictures around here.


Thank you and will do!


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

This guy puts his tads in distilled water for the first 2 weeks (noted at the end of thread). His frogs seem to grow up well enough. I'm sorry I couldn't remember the whole story about distilled. I'm having mental problems, atm 

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/me...151849-cool-looking-azureus-morphing-out.html


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## Fantastica (May 5, 2013)

Distilled shouldn't be a problem, since the water you put in the cups will distill in a day anyway. If you have well water, I wouldn't worry about prime. If you live in a city, though, make sure you get some!

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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Bluenerer said:


> At this moment no I dont have any dried leaf I can put in there , My tap water comes out foggy and white but settles clear after a few minutes x)


Does it leave a deposit? If not, that kind of sounds like an aerator on a kitchen or bathroom sink. That would cause hundreds or thousands of tiny bubbles, which can look foggy and white.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Fantastica said:


> ...since the water you put in the cups will distill in a day anyway.


Could you explain how that would work? I cannot wrap my head around that even a little bit.


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## Fantastica (May 5, 2013)

Hmm, just looked up how to distill water. They always taught us in school that it naturally distills if it's let to sit out for 24 hours. Guess not?

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## Nismo95 (Jul 30, 2011)

Fantastica said:


> Hmm, just looked up how to distill water. They always taught us in school that it naturally distills if it's let to sit out for 24 hours. Guess not?
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk


From what I have gathered aging tap water simply gets rid of the chlorines in our water? Could be wrong on that or could be missing other things that evaporate


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Well I finally got some Indian Almond Leaf, came in like 2 days ago and the water is already brown!, tadpoles are fine and active, I had a small one compared to the other 3 and its growing up to size, very happy about that. Today I got my Springtails and I put half of it in the tank, and started a culture with the other half. Vivarium has been up for about a week now. Anyone can tell me when is a good time to start culturing fruit flies? and I noticed that my background started to shrink....  Ima get some moss and just fill in the gaps.


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## froggorf (Nov 22, 2008)

It takes about 2 weeks for a culture to really start booming, but if it's your first time you might want to do a practice one or two before that. If you buy supplies from a sponsor on here the whole fruit fly culturing is pretty easy so I think about 3-4 weeks before you're expecting froglets is a good time to start. Also, they'll appreciate those springtails in their early stages so you don't need to rely solely on flies from the get go.


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## KeithS (May 27, 2008)

I'm not sure if I missed something in your post. You may want to plan a smaller tank/container to start your froglets in. It may be easier for them to find food. If they go straight into a 40 breeder, you may not see them. get them going for a bit, and then when they are nice and strong. Transfer them into the permanent tank.Just my two cents. Others may have a different view. Good luck.


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## LoganR (Oct 25, 2013)

KeithS said:


> I'm not sure if I missed something in your post. You may want to plan a smaller tank/container to start your froglets in. It may be easier for them to find food. If they go straight into a 40 breeder, you may not see them. get them going for a bit, and then when they are nice and strong. Transfer them into the permanent tank.Just my two cents. Others may have a different view. Good luck.


Great advice - you can keep track of them much better in a small tank. Then, if some are not doing well, you can separate them to their own grow-out tank. Sometimes darts can be bullies when it comes to hogging food - especially to a smaller froglet. The grow-out tank doesn't have to be fancy - just a moist substrate, high humidity and some places for them to hide - like under a large leaf.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

LoganR said:


> Great advice - you can keep track of them much better in a small tank. Then, if some are not doing well, you can separate them to their own grow-out tank. Sometimes darts can be bullies when it comes to hogging food - especially to a smaller froglet. The grow-out tank doesn't have to be fancy - just a moist substrate, high humidity and some places for them to hide - like under a large leaf.


woops! I actually have a smaller tank that I used the extra ABG mix and moss that I got from joshes frogs, its 5.5 gallon though


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Also 3 of the 4 tads have small hind legs!! this is crazy x), its my first time having these guys and so far its been fun!


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Fantastica said:


> Hmm, just looked up how to distill water. They always taught us in school that it naturally distills if it's let to sit out for 24 hours. Guess not?
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk





Nismo95 said:


> From what I have gathered aging tap water simply gets rid of the chlorines in our water? Could be wrong on that or could be missing other things that evaporate


Yes, aging for 24 hours would only get rid of chlorine. Actually many or most water processing plants now add chloramines, rather than chlorine. Aging will NOT help with chloramines. Adding DeChlor or a similar product is an easy way to take care of chloramines. 

Actually, if you want to get really technical, you could make a claim that sitting water out for 24 hours would "distill" it. The problem is, the distilled portion is the part that evaporated. The part left behind in your bucket would actually have (barely) concentrated levels of whatever impurities where in there.


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## ecichlid (Dec 26, 2012)

Pumilo said:


> Yes, aging for 24 hours would only get rid of chlorine. Actually many or most water processing plants now add chloramines, rather than chlorine. Aging will NOT help with chloramines. Adding DeChlor or a similar product is an easy way to take care of chloramines.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, if you want to get really technical, you could make a claim that sitting water out for 24 hours would "distill" it. The problem is, the distilled portion is the part that evaporated. The part left behind in your bucket would actually have (barely) concentrated levels of whatever impurities where in there.



This is correct.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Well its soon to be about 3 weeks since I first got my tads and this is an Update 3/4 of my rads have very noticeable hind legs so I think they are older than the other one, which legs are still growing but smaller, Now My question is should I buy FFs now? or is it still too soon?


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

I bought fruit flies months before I bought my frogs. I did this to learn how to culture them. Just a suggestion. Congrats on your tads!


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

cbridgeman said:


> I bought fruit flies months before I bought my frogs. I did this to learn how to culture them. Just a suggestion. Congrats on your tads!


I'm looking to buy a culture beginning set with that can make 10 cultures the one thing I dont understand is the cycle of using the cultures. so lets say I make 4 cultures, do I use #1 culture for a week and the next week use culture #2? so it would be 3 weeks before I use culture 1 again...x) Im a noob at the cultures really haha


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Pumilo has excellent threads on all the bugs you'd ever want to learn about...do it NOW so you can understand the whole process and even if you have to throw out, or find someone who wants your unused cultures...do it....it is a whole lot better and much less stressful to get it right before you have hungry frogs. Check out the differences in the FFs, there are differences....and you can get starter kits from NEHP or Black Jungle (off the top of my head...)--Read and Practice.... As intimidating at first...you do realize after a while--what the heck is all the fuss about....


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## Nismo95 (Jul 30, 2011)

Bluenerer said:


> I'm looking to buy a culture beginning set with that can make 10 cultures the one thing I dont understand is the cycle of using the cultures. so lets say I make 4 cultures, do I use #1 culture for a week and the next week use culture #2? so it would be 3 weeks before I use culture 1 again...x) Im a noob at the cultures really haha


I make 2 cultures weekly.. I should be making 3 since I am wearing myself thin by the time the next week rolls around. But with 2 cultures I am feeding to 17 adult frogs and a handful of offspring. Again, I am wearing myself thin week to week with that many mouths to feed. With 1 set of frogs, I think you would be fine with 1 weekly. 2 would be ideal incase any accidents happen and say one culture crashes. I like to be over prepared than to be screwed if something comes up. Cultures can and do crash, and if that happens unless you have someone close by with cultures or are prepared to overnight a culture to your door step its just nice to have the back up for the peace of mind.


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## Nismo95 (Jul 30, 2011)

Also. I use 1 of the two cultures to feed adults, the other to feed the younger froglets. I feed out of them daily or every other day. By the time your next round of cultures are blooming with FF's your first one (or two) usually are done with production. So no, to answer your question if you make 4, you wont be using 1 a week for 4 weeks. they will all begin producing about the same time if you make them at the same time. So ideally, one or two a week will do you fine.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

also by the most recent photo I posted can anyone give me an estimation on how much time is left in my tads metamorphosis?


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## Alexmenke92 (Nov 19, 2013)

Just throwing in a side note that I love my auratus  they are great. I hope you enjoy them when they morph out!


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## Wusserton (Feb 21, 2014)

frogface said:


> Grats!
> 
> Do you have any kind of dry leaf that you can toss in there? Gives them more cover and something else to chew on. Also, how is your tap water? Maybe tap with Prime water conditioner would be better than distilled. Distilled is so pure I worry that it might not be a good idea. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge will comment on that.


If you use tap water let it sit out for a few days to "de-chlorinate" otherwise follow posts on the best way to rear tads, don't burn them up!


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Wusserton said:


> If you use tap water let it sit out for a few days to "de-chlorinate" otherwise follow posts on the best way to rear tads, don't burn them up!


I use distilled water and I use indian almond leaf too.


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## Bluenerer (Jan 30, 2014)

Well its been awhile, 3 out of my 4 tads made it. and here they are in a 5 gallon holding tank!


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