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Fun Learning K12 Homeschooling

Tips For Raising Tadpoles

tadpole

Image source: Our Class Web

Once you have tadpoles from either friend’s pond or from a pet store, you have to know more about general care of taking care of tadpoles. As you have seen it in how to raise tadpoles, here are more tips about general care taking instructions. Without taking proper care tadpoles can die.


Image source:Tadpole Habitat

You can use any good size container for your tadpoles such as;

Other thing to consider are that make sure keep container in

  • Either outside if weather is good but make sure the container has 3/4 shades
  • Can keep them inside with proper lighting
  • Keep them in shallow water
  • Place rocks and smooth gravels can be added at bottom
  • As tadpole matures, it will need a space to get out of the water, so add large stone or submerged wood so it can come out. Remember frogs are amphibian, that means they will need to leave close to water but need to comes out on land as well.
  • Provide shade, aquatic plants and smooths stones for tadpoles to hide and feel secure inside the container. Feeling safe and secure is also important part of raising the tadpoles.
  • Many tadpoles do better with leafy underwater plants according to many tadpole expert sources so use those.

Type of Water to Use:

Always use fresh, spring water without any chlorine. Tap water that most house have has chlorine and it is deadly for tadpoles.

  • Use de-chlorine bottle in tap water. You can let the water sit overnight before using it.
  • Many pet stores, online stores sell it and are inexpensive.
  • Or you can let tap water sit under Sun for 4-5 days to get rid of chlorine before using it inside the container.
  • Water may need changing every week or so, depending on the size of the container.
  • Always take out about 1/3 of original water and keep 2/3 of the old water when replacing with new fresh spring water. As changing 100% water does not go well with most tadpoles.
  • There are also ready made kit available for raising tadpoles kit at home which may be easier for your child and you.

What to feed the tadpoles:

Tadpoles diet depends on type of species they might be. It is often hard to tell what type of frog the tadpoles are until they matures, sometimes you will know the type of species. Regardless of the type of species knowledge, it is generally assumed that majority of tadpoles are herbivores or vegetarians.

  • Frozen leafy lettuce such as romaine or spinach are best option. Just freeze them and crumble and feed them.
  • Some experts suggest boiling the lettuce or spinach to feed them, that will work as well, but boiling will reduce some of its nutrients, so some people suggest just using frozen leaves, as it will be mushy enough for them to chew and eat.
  • You can buy tadpole food, or fish food or crushed algae tablet to feed the tadpoles as well.
  • Feed small amount daily.
  • If your tadpoles seemed to be always on top layers usually means they do not have enough food so give them more.
  • If water becomes muddy or dirty fast, either they are getting too much food or you have not changed the water in a while. See above to see how to change the water tips. (change 1/3 at the time only)
  • Tadpole can stay without water for sometimes but do not keep them too much away from water or hold it your hand.
  • Always clean your hand before handling feeding, changing the water for them

Tadpoles to Frog Process:

Changing from tadpole to frog process, the metamorphosis is simply amazing to see. Depending on type of species, tadpoles can turn in to frog in a few weeks (6 to 8 weeks), while some species have known to take up to 2 years for the metamorphosis from tadpole to frog. Knowing what species you are raising will make process much easier. If you do not know, have patience, eventually it will happen for sure.

How the change happens:

Usually toward the end of tadpole life cycle, you will see tadpole getting back legs. It will start with back legs and they will form front legs in next step.

There will be more changes such as body shapes, loss of gill, lung getting developed and digestive changes will occur this time too. What it means for most tadpoles to frog change is their diet will change form herbivore to carnivore diet.  They will also lose a tail around this time. Many tadpoles will eat very little when they are going through this metamorphosis so there is nothing to worry about if you see they have lost their appetite.

Once the tadpoles starts getting legs and losing tails, it is a great idea to make water more shallow and give them stone of wood perch for them to land on. As without their gills they may simply drown if they do not have place to land on solid surface, so place some large smooth stone, wood etc for them. Some species may need to be removed from water completely once tail is gone, so if you get it from store, friend try to find out about type of species as much as you can so you can care for them better.

What to feed the frogs? Feed the newly developed froglets small crickets, fruit flies, bloodworms, and other small insect and invertebrate foods.

Can you release frogs in to fresh water pond or lake?

If you tadpole/frog species is non native (find out from frog book or internet), it is recommended that you do not release them in to native area as it might create an issue with native species. So, you should create a area in large aquarium or back yard pond to keep and raise them.

If you have native tadpoles and frog species, it can be released in pond or lake. If you decide to release them, do it as soon as possible after metamorphosis such that they will have a best chance to adapt in to the wild in lake or pond area.

 Related Articles:

 How to Raise Tadpoles

Learning About Tadpoles

Where to get Tadpoles

 

Categories
Fun Learning K12 Homeschooling

How To Raise Tadpoles

Image: Tadpoles

Raising tadpoles can be fun and educational for kids, as they will get to see life cycle from tadpoles to frog. Before you start, here are a few things to know so you can successfully raise tadpoles at home. This article shows how to raise tadpole, if you want to know more details about tadpole raising, how to feed and what type of container and feeding needed please check out our other article, Detailed Caring tips for Raising Tadpoles.

Things to know before you raise tadpoles:

  1. In order to raise tadpoles, you’ll need a suitable container, like an aquarium, fishbowl, or garden pond. You can start in glass jar at home too.
  2. Tadpoles likes shade and avoid direct Sun. Be sure it has good shade – about 3/4 shade is ideal for them.
  3. Tadpoles absolutely depend on having fresh, clean water. Chlorine is deadly to tadpoles!If you take the water from a local stream, creek or pond, be sure it isn’t polluted. Ideally, you can get it upstream from any suspected sources like factories, sewers, etc.
  4. If using tap water, let it stand exposed to full sunlight for 5 to 7 days. This will allow the Chlorine to be removed by evaporation.
  5. If you don’t have that much time, you can buy de-chlorinating drops at your local fish-carrying pet store.
  6. You can get also ready made tadpole raising kit available which has everything you will need to get started.

What do I feed tadpoles?

Frog and toad tadpoles are vegetarians, (unlike the tadpoles of newts and salamanders), and are very easy to feed.

They seemed to love lettuce! You can boil the lettuce for 10 to 15 minutes, drain it, and keep it in a baggie in the freezer. Give the tadpoles a pinch every few days. you can also give them water reptiles food sometimes, but not instead of lettuce! You can feed them tadpole or fish food as well.

Other thing to know is that tadpoles of some toads and frogs can morph from placid plant eaters to fierce cannibals if their pools threaten to run dry or if food is scarce. By becoming meat eaters that snack on other tadpoles, the cannibals speed up their development, hoping to transform into toads before the water or food run out. so be sure to feed them enough! But don’t forget, too much food will get the water all dirty.

If your water gets dirty really fast, slow down on the feeding, and be sure to replace the dirty water with some fresh spare water.

How long will it take from Tadpole to become Frog?

The length of time a tadpole takes to develop really depends on what kind of frog it came from and on the environmental conditions. some tadpoles can remain in their tadpole stage as long as 8 months, while others only take 6 to 9 weeks! So be patience. Some species of frog have known to slow down process during colder climate. You can read kids A Tadpole Grows Up (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: Animal Life Cycles) for easy to show the transformation and life cycle as it happens.

When the tadpoles start getting close to developing legs, they will need some sort of perch so they can get out of the water. You can create ledges using stones or even tilting slopes of plastic in tanks.

At the point where they aren’t big enough to eat crickets but are too large to eat lettuce, you can try starting them off with small insects. A good substitute is blood worms which are usually found in pet stores that carry fish.

The tilt of the ledge may be important depending on what type of frog you have. Young tree frogs can climb smooth vertical surfaces such as the plastic pond liners and glass, but the ground dwelling frogs will need a rough slope when the time comes to climb out of the water.

Related Articles:

Learning About Tadpoles

Where to get Tadpoles

Tips for Raising Tadpoles

Categories
Fun Learning K12 Homeschooling

Where To Get Tadpoles


Tadpole Kit

One of the great way to learn about frog life cycle is to raise tadpoles at home. Until recently I did not know how popular raising tadpole was for many kids. It is fun, educational and if done right, easy enough if you follow a few tips. One of the big thing I get always asked is, where to get tadpoles? As many of us live in big cities, finding tadpoles is not always easy. But it does not have to be complicated if you just know where to look and ask. You can find various type of tadpole raising kit that will make your starting out easier, it does not have to be expensive but right tools and food so that you can raise life properly.

Finding tadpoles is easy, but gathering them can be a challenge sometimes. Never remove tadpoles from public areas such as parks, refuges or conservation areas. Ponds, small lakes and creeks are ideal places to catch tadpoles with a small mesh net. Always ask permission on private property. Don’t collect more tadpoles than your tank or aquarium can comfortably hold and never collect more than a few. Most important, know how to take care of tadpoles before you collect them.

Here are a few possible ways to get Tadpoles for seeing life cycle of frogs.

  1. First of all, if you live near creek, lake where you see frogs, that might be a good place to start getting tadpoles. Just make sure it is safe and legal for you to take tadpoles from lake area.
  2. Other thing to do is ask someone you know who might have many frogs in their large yard, they very well have hundreds of tadpoles and can share some with you.
  3. What to do, if you live where there are no creeks, lakes or people with ponds that have tadpoles? Do not worry, there are still a few ways to get tadpoles from online places or local pet stores.

Here are some choices from online places:

Grow Frog Kits

Frog Kits

Planet Frog

Other Frog and Tadpole related Products:

Alex Toys Rock Pets Paint Kit, Garden Frog


Midwest Products Mosaic Frog Stepping Stone kit

Related articles

Learning About Tadpoles
General caring tips about raising Tadpoles
How to raise Tadpoles

 

Raising tadpole from MDC online
Categories
Fun Learning K12 Homeschooling

Learning About Tadpoles

Raising tadpole and learning its life cycle can be educational for kids at home or in school. For many homeschooling families it is must. However, one must know how to properly take care of tadpoles, so they can survive and become frog. If you do it right, it could be simple as raising fishes. However, you may decide, if you want to keep the the tadpoles once they become frogs or let them be in natural habitat.

What are tadpoles?

A tadpole (also pollywog or porwigle) is the larval stage in the life cycle of an amphibian, particularly that of a frog or toad. They are usually wholly aquatic, though some species have tadpoles that are terrestrial.

Tadpoles are young amphibians that usually live in the water, though some tadpoles may be terrestrial.[1] During the tadpole stage of the amphibian life cycle, most respire by means of autonomous external or internal gills. They do not usually have arms or legs until the transition to adulthood, and typically have dorsal or fin-like appendages and a tail with which they swim by lateral undulation, similar to most fish.

See also;

How to Raise Tadpoles

General Caring Tips for Raising Tadpoles

Where to get Tadpoles

As a tadpole matures, it most commonly metamorphosizes by gradually growing limbs (usually the legs first, followed by the arms) and then (most commonly in the case of frogs) outwardly absorbing its tail by apoptosis. Lungs develop around the time of leg development, and tadpoles late in development will often be found near the surface of the water, where they breathe air. During the final stages of external metamorphosis, the tadpole’s mouth changes from a small, enclosed mouth at the front of the head to a large mouth the same width as the head. The intestines shorten to make way for the new diet. Most tadpoles are herbivorous, subsisting on algae and plants. Some species are omnivorous, eating detritus and, when available, smaller tadpoles.

How to tell what kind of frog you have from a tadpole:

Usually telling what kind of frog you have from a tadpole, you have to wait until they grow to be frog and compare the images of frog from the encyclopedia or internet to know what type of frogs they are;

Other things that expert recommend is to find a regional guide (like go to the library and find a book about what sorts of animals live in your area) and often if there are frogs, they will also show photos of what they look like as tadpoles. There really aren’t any obvious distinguishing features that separate frog types at tadpole stage. Remember there are around 3,900 species of frogs in the world! So finding can be long but educational process. You and kids may learn a lot during the research of what type of frogs you are raising.
If the field guides for your region don’t have pictures of tadpoles, your best bet is to wait until it becomes a frog and compare the pictures of frogs in the guide. Learning About Frogs, Frog source books is a great resource to get you started on what type of frogs you may have.

Image Source: Wikipedia, amazon