# My first clutch of eggs!!! (I need help!)



## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Well, well, well.......


I found Trinity climbing around this big leafy, purple and green plant. Ever since I moved it in there, Clarence has moved his territory there, while Anthony switched with him. Additionally, all those ferns have really provoked Trinity to come out a lot compared to her shy nature originally.

Trinity rarely ever climbed, but now, I was witnessing her climb for the first time.

I witnessed the entire mating dance. Clarence seduced her to going into a leaf where they remained in amplexus for quite some time. Then, they stopped, hung out together, and went at it again.

Around 3 pm. There were...EGGS!!!! 

Now, I talked to Sean a bit (the original vendor) and he says if they are fertile, I will see some kind of stripe or tube within 24 hours.

He recommended me to move them if I knew they were fertilized.
However, I believe Ed Martin said he had better luck if he let them take care of them and let the male move them...

Which is better? If I decide to leave them in there, should I drip water mixed with tannins to keep away mold? Should I put a dish of water so Clarence can move them?

I put a film canister in there, but took it out. Trinity didn't like it. It was on the ground. So, i guess i will have to pry them off if I should move them.

Anybody got a shopping list I should make?

I got:

RO water unit
Plenty of peat moss/ coco peat (BTW: Coco chips make a wonderful tea)
shoeboxes
heat pad (dunno if I need it)

Anything else? (what type of food)


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

bump...

BTW, can i just use peat tea in place of blackwater?

How do I apply methyl blue?


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## OneSmallFrog (Apr 27, 2005)

*Coco chip tea*

This is based on what's said about coco chips as an orchid medium, but I would be cautious about using them for tadpole tea, because we're always warned to soak and resoak coco chips in clean water for several days to leach out salts before using them. 

Bev


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## geckguy (Mar 8, 2004)

I would avoid buying a RO unit for now, as to make the water safe it requires adding RO right, amquel/prime. Just use bottled water, it won't cost much when you only have a couple of tads. I have used Tetras black water extract with good success, although I have heard good things about Kent blackwater extract. Blackwater and methyl blue are used for the same purposes, to prevent bacterial infection, so use one or the other. I prefer the more natural approach, so I use blackwater extract, just enough to turn the water a light tea color. I also like to add a bit of java moss, and a couple of dried oak leaves. When using a heat pad, you will be more likely to cook your eggs then help them, just keep them at room temp, and they will do fine.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

already have an RO unit though

Now. Several people here tell me to leave the eggs. Others, say no, you should move them ASAP.

I hear either "tricolor eggs hatch the best for me when I let the male take care of them."

But, how do I get him to move the eggs?

Just a dish of water for him to get into if they're going to hatch?


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

I pull my tricolor eggs. The male guards and cares for them well but I only have a tiny water area in my tricolor enclosure, so it would not work for the large clutches that one of my females produce. I figure that trying to intercept the male with 20 - 30 tads on his back would just stress him out, although I'd love to get a picture of that. You do not have to pull them right away, take your time to decide. The male should care for them 
until you decide what to do. The eggs will hatch in 13 - 15 days. 

I had a problem with tricolor eggs molding a lot, causing a low hatch rate. I resolved this by rinsing the eggs with a strong tadpole tea on a daily basis and providing a lot more ventilation and less humidity than I use for all my other eggs (Thanks Ben!). My normal setup for eggs is to take whatever they are laid on, place them on a Petri dish and put them in a gladware container with wet paper towels at the bottom. I rarely open the containers and monitor development of the eggs thru the lid of the container. With the tricolor eggs, I rinse them at least once a day, do not use the paper towels and leave the container open after rinsing for at least 15 minutes. I'd only use methylene blue as a last resort

The tads hatch really small, but grow fast. I raise them communally in a Rubbermaid container that is filled with oak leaves, java moss and pathos. The container has a UV light over it, I also add B-complex to the water, I'm not sure if it helps or not but does not seem to hurt. I feed them my tadpole mix, sera micron, Aquarian vitamin, cyclopse-eze and tetramin tablets. I feed my tads a LOT in the large containers but only do a partial water change once every week or so. As soon as you see front legs get them into a morphing container with only a little water in it. I have had tads/froglets drown that still had 1/2 of their tails left.

I guess that is about it..... Good Luck, do not hesitate to ask any questions! Remember this is what has worked best for me, there are other ways to raise the eggs.
Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

well, i have noticed a dark stripe along a few eggs.

I'll let Clarence "practice" for a few days and then I'll pull them. I do mist the eggs about twice a day, and I very easily could make a tea and mist the eggs with it several times a day.

Additionally, I have a fogger that you can put in water that will float. Oh course, I WILL NOT let the tadpoles get near it. I could hook it up to my digital timer to fog up the container that has the egg dish until they're ready to hatch...

Cyclopeeze! That's what I've thought about buying for my tadpoles. Supposedly, its loaded with color enhancers.

Ed, what about other, "hidden" clutches of eggs? Do tricolors lay more than one clutch at a time?


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

The dark stripe is a good sign. 

I do not think that you need to wet the eggs while they are with the frogs, the male will do that. I guess it cannot hurt. My issues with molding was that the eggs were too moist in my regular setup. I think a fogger will create way to much moisture. 

I only feed a TINY bit of cyclopse eze in relation to everything else. The primary food is a mix of spirulina, chlorella, stinging nettle and bee pollen (2:2:1:1) and sera micron. I just try to feed tads a wide variety of food! My advice is that you should stay with the basics for your first couple clutches, it is better to have tads that morph OK than ones with great color that might have issues.

I have never had multiple clutches as long as the eggs were in the enclosure, and I have 3 females that all seem to lay eggs. But I guess anything is possible.

I'd mess with the eggs as little as possible unless you see them molding, frogs have been doing this for a long time without our help! 

Good luck!
Ed


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

I jinxed myself by saying I never let the male care for the eggs until they hatch or had multiple clutches. I looked in the enclosure this morning and saw this: 




















I pulled a large clutch on Monday so this one was obviously hidden. One of my females lays smaller clutches with only 5 - 10 eggs VS 20 - 30 from the larger ones. This must be one of her clutches Still not sure if it answers your question about multiple clutches since I have 3 females in with the single male. 

Sorry I could not get a better picture. 

Ed


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Wow Ed...those are great pictures and one busy papa. Wonder how he feels carrying all those tads around?

Bill


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## Darks!de (Nov 16, 2004)

Ed...have you successfully raised any of the larger clutches? That's a whole lotta tads.

Luke


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Wow thats an awesome sight. Where did he drop off the tadpoles?


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

He has not dropped them yet. From what I have seen with other species he could carry them for a couple days before depositing them. I placed a few more water containers in the enclosure to give him options.

Bill, I do get concerned about him "getting worn out" and was getting ready to start the process of drying out the enclosure to shut them down (works well for other frogs) but I'm going to wait until after he deposits these tads. 

Luke, I have morphed out a couple clutches, but up until the NJ meeting at Mike's the hatch rate was really low (about 30%) because of the eggs molding in the later stages of development. Ben kept the eggs I gave him much dryer than I normally did and did not have a problem with mold on the eggs. I tried this with the last 2 clutches I pulled and they seem to be doing much better. But even with the low hatch rate I still have about 70 tads in the water right now. Attached is a picture of what I consider a normal sized clutch. These are the eggs I pulled Monday. 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

My eggs died. Most were bad. The few that survived, mold attacked them.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

Yes, I know how you feel. My azureus went through several bad clutches before they started laying good eggs. Originally I had 1.2 in the same tank and got fertile eggs, but when aggression started to show its head, I moved one of the females out. I just got my first batch of good eggs since the other female was removed, and I suspect the one that was removed was the one laying the eggs. So once the second male's quaratine period is over, hopefully I'll have two producing pairs. 

It's very disappointing, and I know everyone says it so much it's cliche, but it really does take them some time for them to get the hang of it. I've only had one egg that I knew for sure was fertile die on me, and I'm sure that was a congential defect, since other tads in the clutch made it through. 

What I do is put the bottom of a petri dish in the tank, leave the eggs in 24 hours once I notice them, and then remove them from the tank. I don't put the eggs in anything else, just put the lid on the petri dish and make sure they don't dry out. In my experience, it's better for the eggs to not be completely covered. You don't want to swamp them. Just put in enough water so that it touches the eggs. They will absorb water if they need it.

One thing that I think is essential is to have the container that you're taking water from right next to the eggs and tadpoles. That way they don't get 'temperature shock' from adding water that's a different temp, even if it feels the same to you. Let any water you're going to use stand 24 hours to reach room temperature.

Just a few things I've noticed in my few months of breeding activity. Hope it helps.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

well whatcha know...

Anthony screwed up badly on the first clutch. He fertilized them in a weird way in this tiny bromeliad, left them for several hours unattended, and then suffocated them by sleeping ontop of them the next few nights. Of course, they weren't going to hatch. In fact, over the next several days, I noticed them turn to mush...

What I DIDN'T know, he fertilized some other clutch of eggs, and I found him carrying tadpoles on his back yesterday!!! :shock: 

I immediately ran to fill a cup of water with some RO and blackwater extract. He ran into the cup immediately, but the tadpoles didn't come off. He tried multi times, but they didn't go anywhere. :?: 

The next day, I checked my tricolors. Anthony was calling again with Clarence, and then I took the cup out, and found several swimming "fishies" in the container.  

Now, some of them aren't moving. But the majority of them are swimming around....


Oh, yeah....that's right, I'm supposed to say....

WWWWOOOOHHHOOOOOOO!!!!


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## bgexotics (Feb 24, 2004)

I wouldn't worry about them not swimming. When they first hatch, tadpoles kinda just sit on the bottom and don't move very much. You'll know they are dead when they start to turn pale and disintigrate it happens very quickly). Hopefully they will do ok, but don't get frustrated if it takes a while. I have Leucs that keep laying maybe 1-2 eggs which wind up molding more often then not. Meanwhile I have azureus who won't stop laying.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Bad news. I think they're dead. They look pale. WHY ME!?!?

WHY ME?!?

I did everything! I used RO water, added blackwater extract! I jinxed myself AGAIN.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I did do something wrong. I just read on Amanda's site that you must acclimate them slowly to new water conditions. 

I can't believe how stupid I was. I didn't know that, that's for sure. I even checked on Doyle's dart den....


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

In some ways, you can almost think of tadpoles along the lines of tropical fish, i.e. no sudden temp changes, water quality changes, etc. without running the risk of 'shock'.

When we found our tricolor tads swimming around in the viv water pool, I put several containers with the water they would be transferred into inside the viv itself and allowed it to come to viv temp, then did the transfer. That seemed to help.

Good luck.

Bill


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

What I'm really wondering is that my water was "too pure." I only added a few drops of blackwater extract to my RO water.


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## bgexotics (Feb 24, 2004)

Most people say to add a product called "RO Right" to RO water to add trace chemicals back to the water. I personally just buy spring water, it is pretty cheap and so far no problems. 

Tadpoles are pretty delicate the first week, but after that they should do fine. I try to be real careful with my newborn tadpoles. I do not feed mine for 2 days since it seems to foul the water too quickly, they are very sensitive to ammonia in the water. I also keep clumps of java moss in the tadpole cups, so they can nibble on that as well as it provides cover. 

Don't let this stress you out too much. I am an experienced fish keeper and it still took a while to get the tadpole thing down. I had close to 30 tadpoles killed (most close to morphing) because it got too hot in my apartment one day while I was in school.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

I went out and bought one of those plastic containers with a spigot on the front. I fill it full of water, add blackwater extract, and sit it near where I keep the tads. Lots of water ready on hand for water changes, and it's the same temp so no worries about temperature shock.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I also got an email from Devin Edmonds.

Apparently, this IS probably one of their first fertile clutches, and he said often the tadpoles can just be bad, even if they hatch. That is, weak, deformed, or just tadpoles that die shortly after hatching could be a problem.

The thing is, the tadpoles were fine that day when I moved them. IT was lthe next morning when I found them dead. 

The water in the viarium was pretty close to the temp in the container, as well as the pH from Blackwater extract. However, the pH could have been a little off, and like others have said, yeah, they seem to be supersensitive the first week.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Goodness. I haven't even noticed, but just today I found some of the tads with BACKLEGS. I couldn't even see them until I took a good look this morning!


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

alright. I moved two tads into a rearing container with sloping gravel and moss, and about an inch of water. They have been crawling onto land with their tails still attached.

One thing. I cannot find the other, smaller neonate! I saw it yesterday morning, but I have yet to see it.

The other one is doing fine. Should I change the bit of water everyday? Somebody said that they are very sensitive to water quality when they morph.


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