# O.pumilio surrogacy?



## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

Hey all,

I have nearly 30 cristobal tads wriggling around from my pair and they have stopped transporting. I know that available brom axles, water sources, etc. is the limiting factor in their natural habitat. Since I have some to play around with, anyone have some advice for surrogacy? I have 4 adult female eldorados that I can use. For folks that have done this in the past, do you just introduce the tads and hope the female pums will notice and feed them? Does a male need to be present for this to work? Just curious.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

IME your best chances of success actually involve removing a tad from the surrogate's tank and replacing it w/ the christobal tad. ive not had any success with simply moving a tad and expecting the surrogate to find it and start feeding (even with tads belonging to the mother)

james


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Rob is the surrogacy guru...I'd talk to him. His site... http://www.robbster.com/RobbHome/FrogPage/TabTop.asp?Tab=Home
Seems to be down which used to have a lot of info on this. I forget the exact spelling of his DB name ;( Rmelenc or something...I'd dig but I need a nap 

I got a Darklands tad about half way to morphing on chicken egg yolk, and my guess is the reason it died was a couple day period where I forgot to change out the water after feeding the yolk and not from a lack of nutrition...though It may have eventually passed from that as well. Thats the only experience I have in that area.


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

Hopefully Robb will chime in. I have not had success raising them artificially, but I only tried one time. I had three recently hatched mancreek tads and lost the female. There was a newly laid clutch of 7 eggs that I took out and tried to freeze to preserve them for later feedings. I fed two tads the pumilio eggs and one some chicken yolk. The two didn't touch other pumilio eggs, even the ones I fed that were fresh before I froze them. The other seemed like it might have eaten the chicken yolk a bit, I couldn't really tell if it was eating or just swimming over it, but it only lasted about 8 days, which was 6 days longer than the other two tads. 
Dave, how did you feed the chicken yolk? I just took the raw yolk, and then tried to get a small dab of it on a needle and placed it in. The problem is that it didn't really stay together, it just spread apart, dissolved, and really ruined the water quality very rapidly. 
I have heard of using fresh eggs of other darts (like auratus) but I didn't have any other eggs on hand to try. Hopefully you will have better success. Be sure to update us on how it goes.
Bryan


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Baltimore Bryan said:


> Hopefully Robb will chime in. I have not had success raising them artificially, but I only tried one time. I had three recently hatched mancreek tads and lost the female. There was a newly laid clutch of 7 eggs that I took out and tried to freeze to preserve them for later feedings. I fed two tads the pumilio eggs and one some chicken yolk. The two didn't touch other pumilio eggs, even the ones I fed that were fresh before I froze them. The other seemed like it might have eaten the chicken yolk a bit, I couldn't really tell if it was eating or just swimming over it, but it only lasted about 8 days, which was 6 days longer than the other two tads.
> Dave, how did you feed the chicken yolk? I just took the raw yolk, and then tried to get a small dab of it on a needle and placed it in. The problem is that it didn't really stay together, it just spread apart, dissolved, and really ruined the water quality very rapidly.
> I have heard of using fresh eggs of other darts (like auratus) but I didn't have any other eggs on hand to try. Hopefully you will have better success. Be sure to update us on how it goes.
> Bryan


That is basically the problem I had. I tried to use a tiny glass eye dropper, maybe a syringe, and just a sharp pen...the challenge was getting a "chunk" of yolk that would stay together. I could usually do it but often by the time I did I'd already dumped a fair amount of liquid yolk that just dispersed. I think the frequent water changes (stress) and wide shifts in water quality attribute to the Tad deaths with this method. I did actually see the tad eating off the chunks several times though.

I believe Rob had some success feeding newt eggs, or maybe it was someone else. I was just wondering if Ikura (salmon eggs) or masago (tiny eggs on sushi) would work. Masago being smaller and more delicate (easier for tad to get into) seem like the better choice. Axolotl eggs might be another option if Stem were to go this route rather then surrogacy. They are often available on Caudata.org. Some are for sale right now actually. Perhaps feeding a variety of different eggs would make up for any nutritional deficiency.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

the chicken egg method lacks, from my understanding, the correct nutrients, not to keep the tad alive, but to produce HEALTHY froglets. i think there are quite a few successes that result in tads developing all the way to froglet stage, but i believe most perish soon after.

dave;

as discussed in a different thread, salmon eggs and other commercially available fish eggs are laden with salt which will likely kill tads (if i remember correctly) 

james


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

james67 said:


> the chicken egg method lacks, from my understanding, the correct nutrients, not to keep the tad alive, but to produce HEALTHY froglets. i think there are quite a few successes that result in tads developing all the way to froglet stage, but i believe most perish soon after.
> 
> dave;
> 
> ...


Ah I didn't consider that... Is it natural or part of the packing process? Even with freshwater fish? Natural roe straight from the fish may be safe if so. I don't know...just throwin it out there


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## ESweet (Apr 13, 2009)

james67 said:


> IME your best chances of success actually involve removing a tad from the surrogate's tank and replacing it w/ the christobal tad. ive not had any success with simply moving a tad and expecting the surrogate to find it and start feeding (even with tads belonging to the mother)
> 
> james


The problem with this is that you sacrifice one tadpole's growth for another. If your goal is 'fun' or scientific understanding, this is the way to go.

On the other hand, if your goal is to get the most possible healthy froglets, I would go a different route. First, your right that tadpole deposition sites are often a limiting factor in nature [Well, some places, not all.. we won't discuss this now =P]. If you think this is the case, I would first add an extra brom and several film canisters to their current tank. However, this might spread their parental care too thin and you could actually end up with fewer frogs than if you didn't do this. [This can happen naturally if they transport too many on their own and try to keep up with them on their own as well]. Next. If you have thirty tadpoles I can assume the parents lay eggs pretty regularly. Your best bet for froglet output would probably be to transport the tadpoles to your own containers and then try to feed SOME [not all] of them with future eggs. You can freeze the eggs and use them for future use - they need about 1 a week initially up to one every 4-5 days later on. You should also try putting some of the tadpoles in with non-breeding pairs. If you put them into previously used deposition sites you will have higher success, but the success rate is still low. If they start feeding a tadpole though, they generally won't stop. It's neat if you get it to work, but the success rate is low. Good luck! =D


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