Monday, April 30, 2007

Tadopole update...

Our tadpoles, measured every two days, have grown from 3/16 of an inch at hatching on April 22 to 5/8 inch today. No sign of appendages but their bodies behind the eyes are becoming fat and rounded. They're happily eating algae and the remains of some worms leftover from the full-grown frog we released last week. I'm thinking of dumping the rest of the mealworms we bought to feed the frog into the tank for the tadpoles. Here they are basking on the basking platform that I probably didn't need to buy, in the glow of the UVA/UVB lamp I probably didn't need to buy:

An interesting twist in our little experiment came almost a week after hatching. As far as we can tell this little guy hatched on Friday, five days after the others:


He must have come from a different clutch of eggs and gotten attached to our clutch somehow. There are no others that hatched with him. The visibile difference between his size and the size of the others is a great help in seeing how quickly they've grown. In the future, I think I'll add a coin or something to the tank for our report pictures.

4 comments:

Bobbi said...

I'm catching up. Sorry to not get back to you sooner. I was all set to say "yes" to tadpoles when I realized I didn't know where my aquarium is at??? So this year I'll have to settle with just watching yours grow up via the photos. Which are awesome by the way. I can't wait to show the boys tomorrow!

Do you these will be Iowa tree frogs? We have them by the tons in our low wet spot near the road. They serenade us all summer long. It is tons of fun when we catch one!

Heather said...

We think these are Spring Peeper frogs, which are tree frogs. There are gobs of them hanging around my friend's pond. We intend to keep them until they no longer have any tail, and it will be interesting to see if they can "sing" before they're full frogs. It might be a noisy bedroom in a while!

Ami said...

Just don't dump all the food at once. Pollutes your tank as it decomposes.

We had spring peepers in our last batch. We had decided to keep them and let them all go at once. Had a big rock for them to get out of the water when they were ready.

Well, they can climb. When they were ready to leave, they left. One day there were five... next morning, they were OUTA here.
Didn't pay the bill, didn't leave the room key... and left a mess behind. ;)

Heather said...

Lousy tenants! They'd better hope they never need a reference from you. ;)

Good point though. Our tank has an opening in the back of the lid for filters/bubblers/whatever. I should probably cover that with something before they grow sticky tree-climbing toes. We've got the tank in the girls' room and I can just imagine the pandemonium of escaping frogs in the night!