tadpoles

[007agent]

My kids have been raising 3 tadpoles for a while now. We had them from spawn and now they were getting quite big and their tails were beginning to shorten. We have been feeding them on fish food and they were thriving until last night. The pond water in their container was diminishing and I topped it up with tap water, however this morning the tadpoles have died. Could the tap water have killed them?. I would appreciate any help so we can do it right next time. Many thanks

[pusskin]

Hi oo7 --
ah -- sorry to hear that the kids tadpoles have died -- such a shame . Kids love all that .
We've just put hundreds of them in a container to stop the fish eating them, and their topped up with pond water, and vegetation to eat.
I really do think that the tap water is to blame for them dying, but I may be wrong.
ours thrived till fully grown last year, with only pond water.

If you lived me , you could have loads of them for the kiddies ! Good luck x

[pusskin]

p.s. I should have mentioned chlorine in the tap water.

maybe thats to blame.
our 4 big clumps of frogspawn have only just hatched out in the last few days. Yours were very early ?

[007agent]

Many thanks pussykins, I had a feeling chlorine could be the culprit. I thought I was giving the poor things a chance as they came from my neighbours pond and he removes the spawn from his pond and puts it down the drain. I will see if he has any more and we will try again.

[pusskin]

Hi 007 --neighbour puts frogspawn down the drain ?

oh thats sad,how can he do that !

I hope your neighbour gives you more little taddies -- that'll be great for kiddies.

I love frogs and toads, they are my mates, and i used to be thrilled when neighbours frogs crawled into our garden, so we went ahead and built our own pond. so --
now we have 11 resident frogs and 2 toads. (yippee)

good luck with your next attempt. x

[Schutzengel]

007 - Sorry to hear of the tadpoles fate, poor kids must have been upset. It would definitely be the chlorine which was the culprit. Hopefully your neighbour will have some left so that you can try again. Pond water is fine if you can obtain any. But not to worry if you can't. Presumably the tadpoles arrived with a certain amount of pond water, which of course gradually evaporates. If you do manage to get some more tadpoles, you need to get a little bottle of Tetra Aqua Safe, obtainable from most pet shops. This will take the chlorine and other nasty chemicals out of the tap water. You will need to fill a 2 gallon household plastic bucket with tap water, and then add a 5 ml teaspoon of the Aqua Safe to the water, (its blue), and stir to mix well with the water. You can then use this to top up the container with the tadpoles in. If you only need a small amount for topping up purposes, you can keep the rest in the bucket (perhaps in the garage or somewhere) until you need more. But you would need to cover the top of the bucket with something to keep any dust out. Aqua Safe is suitable for use with tropical fish and goldfish, and other water living creatures. Hope this information is of help. Cheers. Schutz. PS. I forgot to say the bucket you use must be new, rinsed out with clean cold water, and not have been used for cleaning purposes etc.

[Schutzengel]

PSS. Goldfish flake is fine for feeding tadpoles.

[007agent]

Many thanks schutzengel for taking all the trouble of providing such detailed info. I have printed this off and will definitely get some for next time. Keep all fingers crossed for me

[Schutzengel]

Will do. Thank you very much for acknowledging my answer. Hope you have better luck with the next lot of tadpoles. Cheers. Schutz.