# Pumilio tadpole progression pics?



## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Anybody know a good site that has pictures of a complete pumilio tadpole metamorphisis? I'm raising 4 spare rio teribe tads on my own concoction with an idea ive been kicking around for the past year. Would be nice to compare progression. Today was day 14 and 3 of the 4 are noticeably bigger while 1 is still small and its body hasnt filled out as much, also is the least active of the 4.


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Somebody pmed me about what i am feeding the tadpoles. Its an idea i have had for a year or so and obviously this is my first run through. I'm waiting to expand my sample but keep getting bad eggs from my recent al mirante import pairs. So here is what i am trying, ive never seen anybody try reverse spherification. I tried before years ago when my SN on here was ncsudart (forgot password and email) with just egg yolk but none lasted that long and it was difficult to feed without heavily fouling the water.


Right now i am just experimenting using a base of chicken egg yolk mixed with rzilla liquid vitamin and liquid calcium spray. I blend that with finally ground pellet fish food or tad pole bites and a tiny pinch of repashy vit A. I then take this solution and put it into a syringe and make a bath of sodium alginate. Submerge the tip of the syringe in the bath and as you depress the plunger pull up, the micro drops will break from the tip of the syringe and a chemical reaction forms a thin membrane around the solution (called reverse spherification in the cooking world) basically forming tiny eggs, i leave them in this bath for about 2-3 minutes. The longer they stay in the more they take on a solid jelly like texture. I then transfer the eggs to a fresh water bath and at the moment im keeping them for 1 week in the fridge and make a new batch after 7 days. This is my first run through and obviously we will see if these 4 even morph but i think it has promise and i plan to tinker with different feeder egg formulas. Hopefully it presents a more natural looking food for the tadpoles. Some days they eat a whole "egg" other days you can tell they just kinda nibble on it. I give them 1 new egg each day and am keeping them in about a tablespoon of water that i change daily when i suck out any pieces of leftover "egg"


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## Azurel (Aug 5, 2010)

Interesting idea.... My cristobal seem to lay and produce more eggs and tadpoles then they want to transport....Would be an interesting concept to try out...

sent from my Galaxy S lll


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## Dendroguy (Dec 4, 2010)

This is real interesting, definitely sticking around.

D


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Dartfan83 said:


> Anybody know a good site that has pictures of a complete pumilio tadpole metamorphisis? I'm raising 4 spare rio teribe tads on my own concoction with an idea ive been kicking around for the past year. Would be nice to compare progression. Today was day 14 and 3 of the 4 are noticeably bigger while 1 is still small and its body hasnt filled out as much, also is the least active of the 4.


Do you mean size or stage? 

As far back as artificial diets have been reported, growth has typically occured but metamorphosis is significantly delayed. I was trying to find the references but the data is pointing towards differences in the lipids in the egg yolks as part of the problem in using chicken eggs as a food source. There is speculation that the either the proportions of the lipids and proteins are wrong or there is a problem with digestion and uptake. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Thanks Ed, I was hoping you would chime in with your expertise. For the latest batch of eggs I took 6 new pumilio eggs and blended them into the chicken yolk and froze what I didn't immediately use to make my eggs. If you can find any of the references on trophic egg nutritional analysis I would really love to read them.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Dartfan83 said:


> Thanks Ed, I was hoping you would chime in with your expertise. For the latest batch of eggs I took 6 new pumilio eggs and blended them into the chicken yolk and froze what I didn't immediately use to make my eggs. If you can find any of the references on trophic egg nutritional analysis I would really love to read them.


It's going to bother me, so if I get a chance I'll root around and see what I can find. 
The formation of the pearls is a good idea but I think you'll need to tweak the ingredients if I'm remembering correctly (and I may be misremembering it). 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

http://www2.thu.edu.tw/~biyckam/publication/2003-Fatty acid profile.pdf

Detailed lipid analysis of yolk platelets of amphibian (Bufo arenarum) oocytes - Buschiazzo - 2003 - Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Comparative Experimental Biology - Wiley Online Library 

The first paper is one of the more important ones since it shows that some of the materials are assimilated as is and not digested. If the wrong fatty acids are ending up in the system, it can modify how membranes work. 

There is more I just can't lay my hands on it at the moment. 

Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Thanks Ed, I just skimmed through the first paper on my phone. Interesting note on the similar fatty acid profile between the Anuran and insectivorous lizard egg profiles. A friend breeds bearded dragons, may see if he can freeze me the next round of infertiles one of his females throws and try to incorporate the yolks from those


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Dartfan83 said:


> Thanks Ed, I just skimmed through the first paper on my phone. Interesting note on the similar fatty acid profile between the Anuran and insectivorous lizard egg profiles. A friend breeds bearded dragons, may see if he can freeze me the next round of infertiles one of his females throws and try to incorporate the yolks from those


As an off the cuff suggestion, try using a mixture of the whites and yolk from the beardeds. I wouldn't use "slugs" but shelled eggs may be a good choice. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Just as an update, the two smallest tadpoles died last weekend (Nov3, 4) The remaining two are still eating well and are fairly active. I'm going to try to remove a tadpole the female is caring for that is a week younger than these ones this week and compare size, when i tried to turkey baster him out of the bromeliad today all I ended up getting were feeder eggs she had left him. so i plopped in a substitute just in case.

The dragon breeder I know is on the look out for any of his females that might be gravid with infertiles, but it is really late in the season. I may buy a few female leopard geckos for that purpose instead.


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Another update

The 2 from the original 4 are still alive and eating, but are obviously very far behind developmentally. They have very very tiny back legs, but have not shown much more development. The tadpoles the mother raised are either coming out of the broms or are getting ready to.

I had 13 almirante tadpoles hatch out between 11/23-11/25 that joined the other 2. At this time i also began adding flax and macadamia nut oil to the egg yolk mixture, hopefully as a way to increase the presence of certain fatty acids that were found in the anuran analysis in one of the papers Ed gave me a link to read but were either deficient or not present in chicken egg yolk.

So far all 13 of these tadpoles are alive and feeding, including one that hatched with a very deformed and kinked spine/tail. Some of the larger tads are actually already approaching the size of the 2 from Oct. I've got 10 more almirante eggs developing now that my trio is finally going. I haven't yet decided whether to add some deposition sites for them to raise them or to remove these as well.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The slow stalled development is consistent with all of the reports of artificial feeding going back to the 1980s.... I found one of the older reports of using alternate eggs as a source food Yahoo! Groups 


Some comments 


Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

I was anticipating slower or non development for the first few go throughs. I've also increased the size of the pearls to more tinctorious egg size, previously I was trying to make them the size of pumilio eggs which was kind of a pain. Now I can leave an egg in the cup for 1-2 days before its either gone or beginning to foul.


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## goof901 (Jan 9, 2012)

i am nothing close to an expert, but this is just a logical thought. could you get a feeder egg analyzed for nutrition just like various insects are?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

goof901 said:


> i am nothing close to an expert, but this is just a logical thought. could you get a feeder egg analyzed for nutrition just like various insects are?


Not easily and not cheaply.. accurate full analysis would probably require somewhere between half a pound and a pound of eggs to get an accurate analysis particularly since they would need to do various vitamins, mineral, fatty acids, carotenoids and protiens.... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

Another update

Added 5 more tadpoles today, another 3 look like they will hatch tuesday, the final 2 look deformed/stunted but are still alive. Don't have high hopes.

That brings the total to 20 atm, probably 23 on tuesday. I'm not going to harvest anymore and let the parents raise any more tadpoles.

The 2 tadpoles from Oct 15 are adding more girth, but I'm not seeing much limb development. Not surprising but I'll keep feeding them, maybe I'll have the first forever pumilio tadpoles.

The 13 tadpoles from Nov 23-25 are all still alive (including the kinked tail/spine one) 8 are developing quickly compared to the first 4 I attempted and as stated before are approaching the size of the tadpoles from Oct. 3 are growing but are noticeably behind the other 8 from this clutch. The final 2 (including the deformed tadpole) are only about twice the size of when they hatched. Not sure on the variability as they should all be receiving the same nutrition, these would probably be tadpoles that would die even if the mother were feeding them.


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## Matt Mirabello (Aug 29, 2004)

I bought a kit of alginate and calcium chloride back in 2007, with the intent of trying to make some artificial eggs but I never did get around to doing it. 

At the time I was working with the hypothesis that the tadpoles would do well on a typical poison frog tadpole diet (algae and fishfood) if I could convince them to eat it. I managed to get a feeding response from tadpoles just using a filtered alcohol extract of dried chicken eggs. 

As Ed pointed out, and as it seems to be in biology more often than not, it is more complex than just duplicating the feeding stimuli. The pumilio tadpoles also seem to have difficulty growing at the same rate as their maternally raised and fed counterparts, probably a consequence of the nutritional content of the artificial eggs.

The articles provided on egg lipid composition give a possible explanation. It is also a deficiency that can be tested. 

I am hoping that perhaps coalescing some of the anecdotal experiences of pumilio breeders (and even unsuccessful breeders) might help point to clues. The tadpoles are probably sensitive to the mothers diet and a particular pair of frogs not producing might be explained by parent nutrition. Likewise some keepers might have noticed sudden froglet production once an aspect of the parents diet was changed. Though I would tentatively think most of these observations might relate more to supplements than fatty acid or protein profiles.

It might be a drastic next step but instead of trying an insectivorous egg could insects be tried directly (a pureed mix of available feeder species) in combination with a chicken egg (for the feeding response). or maybe we could convince a frog friendly friend with a chicken (or other bird) to feed one of their hens nothing but insects to produce some insectivorous eggs?

Ed: Following the lipid hypothesis do you think the tadpoles are having difficulty because they are taking in too much of the wrong lipids or too little of the right lipids? (I am not entirely sure of how the tadpoles might be able to partially partition lipid use, uptake, respiration, and excretion)

Matthew Mirabello

New York, NY


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Matt,

I think there is really too little information to be sure.. I can make the argument both ways..for example it is well known that many species have essential fatty acids that can only be aquired through the diet... In addition, there are potential issues with carotenoid profiles... In commercially produced chickens, the main carotenoids are carotenes, luteins, and occasionally canthaxanthin, which indicates a deficiency right off the bat since tadpoles convert astaxanthin to a second isomer of retinol.. 

Ed


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## Dartfan83 (Dec 30, 2008)

^^ great matts think alike I guess.

I lost the third tadpole from Oct today, but he had been looking sickly for the past few days. So he made it to day 70, exactly 10 weeks. The last tadpole from the Oct 17 clutch is very robust and still adding girth, but seeing no noticeable limb development. All of the Nov tadpoles and the early Dec tadpoles (minus one that hatched but was deformed and died three days later) are still alive and eating. So currently I have still alive

Oct 17: 1 tadpole 70 days old out of 4
Nov 23: 3 tapoles 33 days old out of 3
Nov 24: 3 tapoles 32 days old out of 3
Nov 25: 7 tadpoles 31 days old out of 7 (including 1 hatched with deformed spine)
Dec 16: 5 tadpoles 10 days old out of 5
Dec 19: 3 tapoles 7 days old out of 3
Dec 21: 1 tadpole 5 days old out of 2 (other deformed only lived 3 days)

I'm actually very surprised at the very low mortality I'm having so far, obviously it would help if I was actually getting good development. But this leads me to believe that if we can find a suitable diet for oophaga (or at least pumilio) tapoles they may be one of the more prolific darts.

Matt, I'm going to try your idea about a totally insect artificial egg, I've got a few cultures filled with dead FF as well as a termite colony I accidentally let dry out that is filled with dried termites. I hadn't planned on pulling more pumilio egg, but my almirante trio keeps laying even though i've allowed them to deposit the last few clutches. I can see 6 tapoles in cups, and i found 15 more eggs today.

I also think that adding the macadamia and flax oil has helped with faster growth (and hopefully development) in the tadpoles so i will continue to add that to the insect eggs. I fill feed the new almirante eggs exclusively insect eggs, should I try alternating them in with all the 23 current tapoles as well. Or continue to leave them on a chicken egg yolk and oil exclusive diet. I know technically I should leave the others on their current diet, but it's not like I'm in grad school anymore doing anything that I'm going to try and get published.

Thanks,
Matt


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I should note that fruit flies and termites are also deficient in at least some of the carotenoids... I suspect that as time goes on your going to start to see an increase in mortality... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Hatmehit (Jul 9, 2012)

This is really interesting. I'm gonna subscribe to see how it goes.


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