# Tadpole Tea Recipes



## djgard22

What does everyone use to make their tadpole tea? Such as leaves, moss, and other stuff. If we could get a list going of everyone's tadpole tea recipes that would be great.

I'm interested in seeing what works for everyone!


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## PantMan

Indian almond leaves


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## SamsonsFrogs

I use Black Water Extract along with Start Right water conditioner.
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## Gumby

It's probably overkill, but I use blackwater extract (5ml to a gallon of H2O) plus a piece of Indian Almond leaf. The tea turns fairly dark after a few weeks, but you can just place a piece of Almond leaf in distilled, spring, or RO water and it will slowly turn into tadpole tea.


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## WendySHall

*----------------------------------------------------
Wendy's Tadpole Tea*
1 Gallon Spring Water
4-6 Indian Almond Leaves

Add leaves directly to gallon of water. Shake every once in a while. When it turns tea-colored (about 1 week)...it's ready. 
-----------------------------------------------------------

...actually for something so simple, it works pretty darn good! No mold issues whatsoever and the tads seem to love it.


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## mcadoo

Another vote for almond leaves and spring water. Sometimes I just break off a piece of leaf and shake it in water and let it soak in over days after tad is placed in or do same days before tad placed in.


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## illinoisfrogs

I actually just use aged tap water, and a piece of magnolia or almond leaf. And I usually put it in the same time as the tad.......I usually don't make it early.


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## SamsonsFrogs

I forgot to mention I also use store bought spring water.
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## djgard22

Thank you everyone! This is great info. I really appreciate it. I'm not sure which way I should go with this... it seems that everyone has their own special concoction that works! It is very interesting


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## SamsonsFrogs

basically r/o is no good because the intense flirtation. Spring water, aged tap water, well water, rain water are the things I have read others use. Some don't use tannins. I also throw in some type of moss or duck week
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## evolvstll

I just boil tap water in a large pasta pot with a bunch of scrub oak leaves. I will add it to the spring water (arrowhead) that I use for the tinc, auratus, galac, and lamasi tads.
For anthoni tads I raise 5-10 together in a 190 oz container with the oak leaves at the bottom.


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## Ed

From the search function.. 

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/18711-tadpole-tea-recipe.html 

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/general-discussion/1348-what-ingredients-tadpole-tea.html


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## illinoisfrogs

SamsonsFrogs said:


> basically r/o is no good because the intense flirtation.


Ahh, yes, but who doesn't like intense flirtation?


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## FrogOly

RO water is excellent because of the intense filtration. The water will dissolve more of the tannins and such from the leave(s). By the time you have a tadpole and food, and poop, etc in the water, it isn't RO water anymore, and not aggressive. After a few days of turning brown I often end up taking the leaf out because the water is getting dark. 

If you are unsure try spring water for half your tads and RO water for half. See if tads do better in one water or the other. I always have preferred the softer water of RO rather than spring water. I have a better idea of what is in the water and whats not. Spring water can be lots of things, just depends on where it's bottled.


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## SamsonsFrogs

FrogOly said:


> RO water is excellent because of the intense filtration. The water will dissolve more of the tannins and such from the leave(s). By the time you have a tadpole and food, and poop, etc in the water, it isn't RO water anymore, and not aggressive. After a few days of turning brown I often end up taking the leaf out because the water is getting dark.
> 
> If you are unsure try spring water for half your tads and RO water for half. See if tads do better in one water or the other. I always have preferred the softer water of RO rather than spring water. I have a better idea of what is in the water and whats not. Spring water can be lots of things, just depends on where it's bottled.


I personally believe R/O is no good mainly because its mineral/trace elements are removed with the filtration process. 

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## SamsonsFrogs

lincolnrailers said:


> Ahh, yes, but who doesn't like intense flirtation?


Lol ...... 

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## frogparty

lincolnrailers said:


> Ahh, yes, but who doesn't like intense flirtation?


DAMN, beat me to it.


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## Taron

Local pond water.....  lol jk.....rain water with blackwater from a wood and leaf (indian almond leaves)tank. I use the tank for a few of my fish. Works great on tads. Plus its easy to control the ph.

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## FrogOly

SamsonsFrogs said:


> I personally believe R/O is no good mainly because its mineral/trace elements are removed with the filtration process.
> 
> Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide using Tapatalk


What exactly are these trace elements removed from the water that are beneficial to the tadpoles? What is the amount of minerals, trace elements, and contaminants that are contained in the spring water, and are these levels consistent from bottle to bottle? Does any of the components of the plastic bottle leach into the water? Do these leached component levels change with the age of the water in the container? 

My point is you can start with better water, added black water extract, or make your own, controlling the quality of the water. Once you add substances to RO, distilled, or DI, the water is no longer 'pure'. It contains what more of what is thought to be positive for the tadpole, and less of unknown substances that may or not be beneficial to tadpole development.


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## SamsonsFrogs

I have seen many hobbiests store their tad water in plastic containers. Like most water bottling companies...plastic bottles are used to store and ship (ex. Arrowhead, Sparklets). I only used R/O for my reef tank. I believe the trace elements that are in natural spring water help the developing tads. Now everyone has their own way and this is mine.
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## FrogOly

SamsonsFrogs said:


> I have seen many hobbiests store their tad water in plastic containers. Like most water bottling companies...plastic bottles are used to store and ship (ex. Arrowhead, Sparklets). I only used R/O for my reef tank. I believe the trace elements that are in natural spring water help the developing tads. Now everyone has their own way and this is mine.
> Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide using Tapatalk


Why don't you use the spring water for your reef tank? Is it because you were able to control the quality of your water, adding only the trace elements that were proven beneficial to your tank? If so, why is that practice not beneficial to your frogs and tads? You focused on the part of my post about plastic components leaching into the water, but didn't address what you thought was beneficial in this bottled 'spring' water. A lot of bottled spring water is no better than what comes out of a tap at home and filtered by a brita with a new cartridge. 

To start out with high quality water, and make it right for the application is better for your reef tank, it is better for your discus, and it is better for your tads. What you personally do is fine, but to espouse spring water use as the way of doing things is spreading misinformation. The bottled spring water may or may not be alright, but it can change seasonally, and the water source can change. One brand may be regionally bottled at different locations. One location is not the same as the next, and the water sources may change due to rain, drought, farming activity, industry, and the list goes on. 

I am not saying you must use one type of water over another, but to say spring water is good RO water is bad is false.


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## tim13

Since we're on the topic, I have a question. I tank raise my Imitator tads, the parents like to deposit them in film containers. I usually add a mixture of spring water and distilled water or just pure distilled water to their cannisters every few days just to freshen in up. I understand the dilemma with no nutrients in the distilled water, but my film cannisters have a small amount of algae growing in them. They also have various particles from the ABG mix and background the parents track in there. And some dead flies to boot. I dust all my flies so all the floaters should be putting minerals in the water with the tads. Is this sufficient? Should I chip off some very small pieces of almond leaf and add to these tad cannisters with them? Thanks for the response ahead of time Ed!


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## Percularis

FrogOly said:


> Why don't you use the spring water for your reef tank? Is it because you were able to control the quality of your water, adding only the trace elements that were proven beneficial to your tank? If so, why is that practice not beneficial to your frogs and tads? You focused on the part of my post about plastic components leaching into the water, but didn't address what you thought was beneficial in this bottled 'spring' water. A lot of bottled spring water is no better than what comes out of a tap at home and filtered by a brita with a new cartridge.
> 
> To start out with high quality water, and make it right for the application is better for your reef tank, it is better for your discus, and it is better for your tads. What you personally do is fine, but to espouse spring water use as the way of doing things is spreading misinformation. The bottled spring water may or may not be alright, but it can change seasonally, and the water source can change. One brand may be regionally bottled at different locations. One location is not the same as the next, and the water sources may change due to rain, drought, farming activity, industry, and the list goes on.
> 
> I am not saying you must use one type of water over another, but to say spring water is good RO water is bad is false.


We dose and maintain the proper levels of trace elements in order to keep our hard corals. They'll die without the perfect range of calcium, magnesium and alkalinity. They use those to build on their skeleton so they can grow. Frogs do not require certain elements in their water to grow. While it may be helpful to drug their water with supplements, it's not required. I don't think anyone doses trace elements into bromeliad cups for dart tads, and I don't think anybody doses trace elements into pods (though they may be there). I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's good to supplement them with trace elements, but it's not required like feeding is.


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## Ed

I see the thread has a number of incorrect data on water floating through it...

1) there is no "official" designation on spring water meaning that it doesn't have to come from a spring. It could be straight tapwater with no filtration (one brand of "spring" water on the market is just bottled New York City tapwater). 

2) regardless of whether or not you are using RO, DI, Tap or Spring water, they are all hypotonic with respect to the frog/tadpole. In all cases, ions are lost to the solution however there is good data that they scavengee the ions back out of solution. I can give a book reference if people want to read up on it... 

3) It isn't the lack of ions that is the problem it is the presence of ions that is an issue.. excess phosphate (which is added by some muncipalities to control oxidation of the pipes, or is released by carbon filtration) has been reported to cause developmental issues in tadpoles and frogs at several institutions (and was mentioned in the Spray Toad talk last night at Frogday). 

4) People are not placing tadpoles in pure RO/DI water as all of the instances mentioned include the addition of leaves, food, etc to the water which reduces the osmotic potential (and as noted in #2 above all are still hypotonic). 

5) the best control is going to occur with RO/DI that is then reconstituted to a desired concentration. There is a lot of variation with normal tap water and many bottled waters.


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## SamsonsFrogs

Thanks Ed....for shedding some light on that for us. I know it was helpful for me  

I dont want to argue about who is better or who is doing it right or wrong.... I just stated what I use and I believe it works pretty well for my tads. If it helps I feed my tads a combo of tropical fish flaks, freeze dried bloodworms, spirulina powder. I also have java moss and/or duckweed in tads container. 

Never ment any disrespect FrogOLY
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## Tadbit

For whatever reason I always find the water discussions compelling. If I may point you to this post from about a year ago you can collect many points of view including RO, DI, and even Rain Water.

Thread Name: Best Type Of Water?
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/57804-best-type-water.html

For what its worth, here I are some excerpts (and sometimes differing opinions) I found interesting:



> flapjax300 wrote:
> This is actually a fairly debated subject and you may get several answers. Everyone has their own preferences and system that works for them.
> 
> The most commonly used water types are spring water, distilled water and reverse osmosis (ro) water. If you do not have an ro system then spring or distilled will be just fine.
> 
> With distilled water and ro you will have to add some of the natural minerals back into it that were removed via the distillation and filtration process. This can be done with ro right, indian almond leaves, tadole tea (from boiling leaves) or black water extract. Personally I use spring water since it seems to work well for my tadpoles. Eventually I do plan on purchasing a ro system. It will save me several trips to the grocery store and is cheaper in the long run.





> Dendro Dave responded:
> I try to use only distilled or ro water, then spring...and finally tap in that order...I don't really worry about adding extra minerals as there are some in the soil probably and plus it is nearly impossible to not get some vitamin and calcium powder on your substrate from dusted flies...my guess is that is plenty. There are trace mineral additives for aquarium water that you could use though.





> Boondogle said:
> If you are talking just about misting water, then anything without chlorine is fine, including dechlorinated tap water. If you use distilled/ro water (1 gallon is under a buck), then you have the advantage of not getting water spots, which will eventually build up to a permanent level.





> Dendro Dave responded:
> Hard water even without chlorine is the cause of water spots and can eventually kill plants...In sensitive plants the mineral build up kills off new root shoots, burns leaves and inhibits photosynthesis to some degree(last one is just a guess). Occasional use won't likely kill most plants though there are a few very sensitive plants that it might but prolonged use can do a fair bit of damage.





> Mitch said:
> But really I just use tap water with a de-chlorinator (Prime) and add some trace elements for the plants.


Brita Water filters kept getting brought up thus prompting Ed to post:


> Ed said:
> Brita water filters do not change the hardness of the water. If you tried that in my neck of the woods, not only would your mist heads clog but you would be unable to see into the tank from the hard water deposits.
> I use RO water with the waste from the RO system going to water a raingarden of native plants.
> 
> Ed





> Pumilio said:
> ...I would be worried about rainwater. Too much pollution in the atmosphere. Maybe if you live deep in the country? I always used RO. Didn't add anything in unless it was for Tads. Then I boiled it with Oak leaves to the color of light iced tea.





> Paul G wrote:
> I use three types of water....
> Tap water treated with Prime for water bowls, water features, and tads.
> Distilled water for misting. (so I can actually see in to the tank)
> Spring water treated with Prime for eggs.
> 
> Everybody does something different but this works for me.





> Woodsman said:
> I live in New York City and use 24-hour aged tap water for all my uses (I think the flouride makes my frog's teeth shiny!). I wonder if areas that use lake or reservoir water don't have the hard water issues outlined here.
> 
> Richard.





> Ed responded:
> In Philly, depending on where you live you get reservoir water or processed river water. Both of which have a high level of carbonates (it is not uncommon to get a general hardness in excess of 40 ppm out of the faucet).
> 
> Ed





> tzen said:
> Keeping planted aquariums has taught me a lot about this.
> Testing water parameters is one of the most useful things you can do. A low level of hardness, but not totally soft, and neutral to mildly acidic pH are desirable. Depending on where your parameters are, you can either add different sources, or change (drain and replace) the water.
> In general:
> Never use softened water.
> If you use misters, make sure the water is soft, eg RO or filtered rainwater, or you will clog the nozzles and have spots on your glass.
> You can start with tap water, but if the water only is lost to growth and evaporation, you will need to add mostly RO or rainwater. This is where testing the water parameters can help you.


I list all of these to show many credible people on this board have different methods. 

There's also another thread (which I can't seem to find right now) where people talk about their tads becoming much more active when rain water was used in a water change. This is an area of key interest for me as I wonder if it's giving the tads a temporary "fix" due to a new injection of nutrients within the water, and if so, are there any long term benefits.

I look forward to the day when time and money will allow me to experiment with any long or short term developmental benefits between RO, DI, and Rain Water. By the way I live in an area where air pollution/ acid rain isn't as much of a concern like one would find in many larger cities. 

Anyway, I hope that helps and saves some time perusing other threads.


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## Ed

Tadbit said:


> There's also another thread (which I can't seem to find right now) where people talk about their tads becoming much more active when rain water was used in a water change. This is an area of key interest for me as I wonder if it's giving the tads a temporary "fix" due to a new injection of nutrients within the water, and if so, are there any long term benefits.
> 
> I look forward to the day when time and money will allow me to experiment with any long or short term developmental benefits between RO, DI, and Rain Water. By the way I live in an area where air pollution/ acid rain isn't as much of a concern like one would find in many larger cities.
> 
> Anyway, I hope that helps and saves some time perusing other threads.


I would take that idea of being "away from a center providing good rainwater" with a grain of salt given that pesticides and other pollutants are known to reach the US from Africa and Asia and be deposited via rainwater... 

I would also take the anecdotal observation of greater activity due to rain water with a grain of salt as well...


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## Tadbit

Ed said:


> I would take that idea of being "away from a center providing good rainwater" with a grain of salt given that pesticides and other pollutants are known to reach the US from Africa and Asia and be deposited via rainwater...
> 
> I would also take the anecdotal observation of greater activity due to rain water with a grain of salt as well...


Thanks Ed and noted. You're the expert and I'll take your opinion as near fact. 

It was a point of curiosity, not to mention, a personal quest to find a near ideal environment for optimal health and development for the frogs. 

I've also had in the back of my mind _if_ the greater activity did exist, it may have been nothing more than slight to moderate temperature difference between the existing and newly introduced water (I've seen this behaviour in my old freshwater fish). Anyway, perhaps something for me to kick around a little bit in the future for fun.


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## Ed

Or simply the stimulation of disturbing the tadpole resulting in an escape attempt that is restricted due to the rearing conditions.... This is also reported in wild tadpoles when disturbed..

Or even an attempt to deal with the sudden changes in volume which could be indicative of a phytotelmata failing (or avoiding being flushed from a bromeiliad or other rearing site by a rainstorm..)


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## Boondoggle

Tadbit said:


> For what its worth, here I are some excerpts (and sometimes differing opinions) I found interesting...


One of the reasons that you will come across so many different opinions is that all of our faucet taps can be delivering slightly different concoctions. I work for the city I live in (for the water department) and I've discussed this with the lab guys before. It was pretty surprising to me how much water can vary depending on whether it is ground water, surface water, a mixture, which of the many, many types of filtration your municipality is using, what is being dumped by others upstream of you, what your State regulations may require above and beyond the Federal Standard, where you happen to be in the distribution system, etc. I know that the residents farthest from the water plant in my area can have chlorine levels 1/3 that of elsewhere in town. 

For reasons Ed mentioned, Spring water can be subject to many of those variables as well. I think what all these slightly differing opinions show more than anything is how resilient tadpoles can be, provided the parents are healthy, mature, and well nourished.

I've tried different methods for tads..dechlorinated tap water (very hard), pre-made Indian leaf tea with tap or RO, black water extract to, straight Spring Water, straight RO, and combos. None of the methods seemed unquestionably better so I don't have a super strong opinion on what's best, but I now use RO water in a deli cup with a few small oak leaves and a small amount of Java moss. I don't change the water and I only occasionally have to add water in the dryer months. By the time the frog morphs I have a frog and a super green portion of java moss. The water looks tan, and clear with a small amount of residue on the floor.

I see less SLS now than I ever have. Of course I can't say be sure why, but this method seems to be working for me.


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## FrogOly

SamsonsFrogs said:


> Never ment any disrespect FrogOLY
> Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide using Tapatalk


None taken. 

Thankfully Ed can get the point out in a way that is better understood than my ramblings. Tadpoles may be raised in a puddle of tapir pee in the wild as far as I know, I just know a lot about how water is variable and that bottled 'spring' water is not necessarily what it can be implied as being.


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## djgard22

Is it possible to make the water to dark from adding more leaves then need? Would to many leaves kill the tadpoles?


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## djgard22

needed* Sorry about that


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## Jarhead_2016

I use Deerpark as my base water. Then i add a mag leaf and let it sit. After a week i add a little java moss and there you go tadpole tea.
-scotty


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## djgard22

scottydo said:


> I use Deerpark as my base water. Then i add a mag leaf and let it sit. After a week i add a little java moss and there you go tadpole tea.
> -scotty


Thank you Scotty! What is Deerpark? Should the water be changed about every week or so?


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## moose12

I do the same as Gumby....and often throw in some java moss....


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