# Northern Variabilis Eggs



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Hey everyone,

Just got an early Christmas present my first darts, two northern variabilis, just spent the whole day in an egg canister and when I checked tonight I found three tiny eggs. Can someone who had raised these frogs before pass on some advice on what steps I should take to provide the best chance at the eggs surviving.

1. Should I pull them, when? I have Petri dishes.
2. Do I need to keep them wet, how wet?
3. Any tips that have worked well for you!

Thanks, I am very excited!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2


----------



## dysphoria (Apr 1, 2012)

There are a couple schools of thought on removal, but I'll tell you what's worked well for me. 
In my experience, it's best to either leave them in the canister until they emerge from the egg, or to remove them from the canister immediately.
Any fiddling with the eggs after about a day or two seems to stop development. I've found that a slurpee straw(not my idea), works well for removal without harming the eggs. 

As to how wet to keep them.. I've seen vents and variabilis lay eggs completely submerged on many occasions, and they seem to develop without issue. If they seem to think it's ok, who am I to judge?

Tips.. Leave them be once you decide what you are going to do in regards to leaving them in tank, or moving them out... don't mess with the water(other than gently topping off with distilled/RO), don't mess with the eggs, don't try and clean anything out. It's hard I know, but in my experience, the more I've toiled about cleanliness of the water(being an extremely anal ex-aquarist) the less success I've had.


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Thanks for the advice. The eggs were deposited sometime yesterday afternoon. I would not able to remove them until later this afternoon after work. Do you think it would be better to leave them in the film canister since it will have been more than 24 hours?

Also it appears that there are four eggs!


----------



## Dendrobati (Jul 27, 2012)

Congrats on your first eggs! That's exciting! =)

It sometimes may takes a few tries for them to get it right, so don't get discouraged if these eggs and the next few don't develop. Make sure that you supplement your frogs well via dusting their food with a quality vitamin and you'll do great!

I have raised a lot of variabilis northern and I have tried multiple methods. For me, I found that pulling the eggs gives me the best results. When I don't necessarily want any more tads, I leave the eggs in the tank. Monitoring the process throughout time, I have never had a froglet emerge from the tank. More often than not my variabilis wont transport the tads once they hatch. 

So, my best results are pulling the eggs. I put them on a petri dish with a mix of RO (you can use spring) water and methylene blue (you can get a most pet stores for $3 or $4 for enough that will last a lifetime - sold in the fish department). I add a few drops to a gallon of water. Add water to the dish to keep water on the bottom but not submerge the eggs. I find that I need to add water morning and night, sometimes afternoon too.

The methylene blue is an anti-fungal that will prevent mold and fungus from growing on the eggs while they develop. Not everyone uses this method, but I have had good success with it. 

It will take about 2 weeks for the tads to emerge from the egg sack. Once emerged, move to the next step! =)

Best of luck & happy holidays!

Brad


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Well with all the craziness of the holidays I didn't have a chance to get to the pet store to get methylene blue or set up a controlled container for the eggs so I decided to leave them in the tank. All three eggs appear to be good ( they are all a dark grey color ). Not sure if I should pull them after so many days or just wait until they hatch out and then pull the tads, either way this is very exciting. 

It also appears that the female has allowed the male to move in with her! They used to each return to their own broms each night. For the past few nights however, they have each slept in the same brom  Guess they are officially a couple now!


----------



## JimO (May 14, 2010)

All good advice. I don't use methylene blue myself, but I have had a success rate of about 40% from egg to froglet. Mine sometimes hide eggs in a brom axial and I've occasionally found a large tad or froglet in the viv, but they aren't very good parents. I have had eggs damaged by subsequent mating activities in the same film canister, but I have a 2.3 group. They'd all crowd in and have a "frog party" leaving two or three clutches behind. I started pulling the whole film canister and placing it in a shoebox with some water and a piece of eggcrate. This is the same setup I use for petri dishes. You can stick the canister to the side of the shoebox. Some people cap the film canister to keep the humidity up, but I just leave the top off and check it frequently to make sure the eggs are still in contact with the water within the canister. If the eggs are good, you should start to see the heads and tails emerging from the yolk in the next few days.

Don't let them get too warm. They will develop faster but have a higher incidence of SLS. I keep mine between 70-72F. I wouldn't recommend anything over 75F or below 68F. I'm not aware of problems with keeping them cooler, but they can take a couple of months to hatch and up to a year to emerge from the water if they are kept at temps below 70F. I had some tadpoles in the water for 8 to 10 months last year because the room I kept them in got cooler in the winter. They came out looking fine and healthy but that's a long time to take care of tads.


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

That is a good idea to remove the whole film canister. The only thing I am worried about is maintaining the temperature outside the viv. I don't have any extra lights, although I guess the temperature range you gave is room temperature so maybe I wouldn't really need to worry about that too much.


----------



## IEatBugs (May 15, 2012)

JimO said:


> ...they can take a couple of months to hatch and up to a year to emerge from the water if they are kept at temps below 70F. I had some tadpoles in the water for 8 to 10 months last year because the room I kept them in got cooler in the winter. They came out looking fine and healthy...


Jim, have you noticed this effect with other species?


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Well I was checking the film canisters to see how the eggs were doing and happened across two tadpoles in the other canister. Not sure when the male deposited them there but there is minimal water. I am sure one is alive but am not sure about the other. I have setup a fruit fly cup with water, java moss and some duckweed but don't have any indian almond leaves or blackwater extract yet. Do you think it would be best to transport the tads to the container now. Will they be ok until I get the leaves in a week? They are currently in very little dirty water.

Thanks,
Nathan

Ps the other eggs are developing for sure!!!


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

I went ahead and pulled them, currently have both in one container, I will separate them as soon as I get more containers next week. Couple more questions:

1. I have hbh tadpole bites, how often and how many should I feed?
2. Anything else I should feed?
3. Do they move very much, mine have barely moved in hours?
4. Any special things I should do to increase their chance of survival?

Thanks,
Nathan

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Caught the make transporting another tad this morning ( picture coming later today ). Hopefully he will deposit it somewhere I can pull it!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2


----------



## Nath514 (Jul 8, 2012)

Just pulled three more eggs that were just laid to make room in the film canister for the male to deposit tads. We will see if the pulled eggs do as well as those I left in the tank. I put them in a Petri dish with a little water.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2


----------

