DAY 1:

I woke up one morning to around 80 eggs, most attached to plants, which made it easy to remove them. For the rest, I transferred them with a turkey baster. About 2-3 days later, I found 30 more eggs so I added them to the batch since they were close enough in age.

I kept them in a small sterilite container (12"x7" shoebox size) with a 50W heater set to 78-80F and an airstone at the lowest setting. I changed anywhere from 30-100% of the water daily, based on how dirty the water was (such as when I tried new foods) though in small increments as to not shock the tadpoles from a large swing. I had a 5 gallon bucket filled with dechlorinated water heated to the same temp. so I could do water changes easily.

DAY 2:

The tadpoles began forming within the eggs, going from spherical to more elongated. It happened within a few hours, which was amazing.

 

DAY 4:

Tadpoles emerged from egg and were stuck to the bottom and sides of the container. Supposedly they still have their yolk sac attached, though they were too small for me to see anything.

 

DAY 6:

Here is an overview of the tadpoles. According to the informational post by frogbreeder, adf tadpoles are supposed to absorb their yolk sac and become free swimming around day 5-7 as they feed on infusoria in the water. My tadpoles were a bit slower in becoming free swimming and weren't swimming around until day 9 or so.

I added a few plant clippings from my main tank for a bit of infusoria because I didn't have a culture going beforehand.

 

DAY 9:

The tadpoles had become mostly free swimming, though sparingly. Most of the time they opted to lay still or float. They were able to swim short distances and I offered their first feeding of freshly hatched BBS because a few of them were swimming around, which meant they were ready for BBS. Even though it was only a few that I noticed swimming, I'm glad I started feeding because many of them ended up with round, orange bellies!

In the photo, many of the tadpoles are upside down because they often swallow air bubbles and can't right themselves until they release the bubble(s). The sides of the tadpole container was littered with thousands of tiny bubbles each day.

 

DAY 12:

Here is the tadpoles on day 12, eating some BBS. I fed them about 3x a day with live BBS. You could watch them suck up the BBS with their tiny mouths like a vacuum and see their bellies get so full and orange! They looked more like orange blobs with two eyes and a tail

They were definitely actively swimming by this point. All but a few of them were now occupying the top of the water column and hunting rather than staying at the bottom lifelessly.

 

DAY 15:

They were growing very quickly, some growing much faster than others. Their tails were growing thicker and longer, their bodies were becoming more elongated and their coloration was becoming increasingly orange! Probably because they were only really eating orange BBS lol. :grin2:

In the photo, you can see the undulation of the tip of the tail as they swim around. It looks like they have eyes at the top of their head because of the black/shiny spots. It makes them look a bit scary, but if you look at them from under the water, you will be able to see their real face, which is adorable! I will be sure to post a photo of that somewhere in the thread.

 

FOOD DISCUSSION:

So far, freshly hatched BBS seemed to be the best food for them and were readily accepted by all so I prepared two hatcheries for multiple feedings during the day. It definitely got tedious and so I explored other types of foods to see if they would accept it so that I could potentially reduce BBS feedings and supplement with another food. But of course, it seems like my tadpoles are ridiculously picky.

Here is a few foods that I tried that they did not take. Some of them ventured to taste, but spit it out immediately lol:

1. Hikari Tropical First Bites (very fine powder, mixed in water first to avoid floating and causing tadpoles to ingest air bubbles, sunk too fast for tadpoles to eat)

2. Soaked/crushed zoomed frog&tadpole pellets (tadpoles spit it out)

3. Cut up frozen adult brine shrimp with spirulina powder (tadpoles spit it out)

4. Cut up frozen blood worms (tadpoles refused to accept in the beginning, but now that they are older, some of them take to it, as long as it is plump with blood)

5. Frozen baby brine shrimp (few tadpoles ate, but most were not interested and did not notice the tiny BBS particles. They are not as orange as the live ones)

6. Ocean Nutrition instant baby brine shrimp (tadpoles basically hate it and spit it out right away even though it is brightly orange colored like live BBS)

7. Live blackworms (cut up into small pieces, most of them accept it now as froglets but it's hard for them to recognize it as food because it looks so similar to their poop)

So for now, I have been hatching live BBS each day but they are warming up to frozen blood worms recently so I'm going to continue trying to feed them.

 

DAY 21:

They started growing tiny leg stumps beneath their tails a couple days before, and they grow so fast! By day 20, I could see tiny feet on the leg stumps! No arm buds visible yet. I also added a frontal view of the face.

There are significantly less deaths now, but it is beginning to be clear that some tadpoles are definitely healthier than others as some of them are growing quickly and are strong swimmers and eaters, while others are either significantly stunted in growth or showing signs of deformities in leg or tail formation.

 

DAY 24:

Legs are lengthening at quite a speed each day. At this point, the legs don't move much and are just tagging along for the ride. They sway a bit, and sometimes twitch a little but there doesnt seem to be any intentional movement of the legs yet. You can see the beginning of some arm buds behind the eyes. So cute!

 

DAY 26:

More defined leg growth, and some of their arms have sprouted! Officially a froglet now? As you can see from the pictures, some tadpoles are still at earlier stages of development and don't have as defined legs or arms.

For the tadpoles who have had their legs for a couple days now and are growing strong, I see some leg kicking and intentional movement! Though, they dont seem to use their legs to swim yet. And though it is harder to see, you can spot some of the tadpoles with deformities, such as a bent tail or bent leg. Not sure how that will pan out once they become frogs.

In addition, I've lost one tadpole to a huge air bubble that got stuck inside its stomach and couldn't pass. Tadpole was upside down for a couple days and I believe the pressure of the bubble inside caused internal organs and such to start pushing outwards, causing a deformed body shape. Unfortunately, the tadpole passed. It's the only one I've lost so far that way as most others are able to burp up the bubbles eventually.

Also, from the second picture, you can see that it is getting quite crowded in the container and based on the information from frogbreeder, if there are too many tadpoles in a small space, there's a possibility that some could emit a chemical that could kill others. So I decided it was time to upgrade and I moved all of them to a much bigger container so they had more room to swim and explore and don't feel threatened by numbers.

 

DAY 28:

Here they are today in their new big container! The first picture shows a froglet with both arms and legs grown in, with some weight added on. Not sure if the plumpness is normal or not though, because some of the froglets legs/arms are much plumper than others. Can't tell if it is swelling or just extra skin?

However, you can also see two on the top that clearly have deformed legs. It's sad to see because I realize that when they become frogs, they will have difficulty coming up for air without functioning legs. Second pic is for a bit of size reference as to how tiny they are!

On a happier note, the froglets are actually using their arms and legs to make their way through the water. They paddle around with their limbs, sometimes with their tail helping them, sometimes not. They are eating much more food, so there is a lot less food wasted because I've been pretty much making the same amount of BBS this whole time lol. I have found that when they are hungry, they are more likely to attack their brothers and sisters and try to eat them. I have seen chasing and nipping when they have gone a while without food. Once they get their food though, some of them eat so much that they basically become round balls with legs and a tail. They sink to the bottom and can hardly move around! It's quite funny

They are also pooping way more than before, which is expected. The poop is bright red.

Haven't had a death in a while, except for the air bubble tad. I'm guessing I'll have a few more deaths though, because a few tadpoles look quite weak and are underdeveloped. Some of them even are deformed in the body shape as well. I would say that the number of froglets that seem healthy and without any visible deformities would be less than 20 out of the 43 I have now.

Interestingly enough, while most of the froglets are are colored orange, some of them are clear! You can see all their organs and stuff, though most of it is just lumped together. The clear ones seem to be more underdeveloped than the others though. We'll see how it goes and I'll keep updating as everyone grows!

 

Very interesting journal. The froglets are very cute. Pls keep them coming!

 

Thank you!! I will continue to update as things progress

 

DAY 30:

There is definitely something wrong with a majority of my froglets! Not only are many of them carrying deformities, but their limbs are very swollen. It's very sad to see, and its hard for them to swim around because their limbs are becoming immobile now. Some of the swelling has gotten much larger, some of it has gone away in certain frogs. Some of them even seem to have a bit of internal bleeding? Not sure what's going on there.

In the photo below, you can see a more or less normally developing froglet and next to it is the swollen one.

I'm hoping its not something I did to cause this issue. I'm going around to find some alternate food sources for them in case its some sort of nutrient deficiency. I've only been feeding them live BBS their entire lives because that's the only thing they would take so far.

I'm probably going to make a separate post about this so I can hear more people's thoughts.

 

Man, that's a bit sad I hope they'll turn out alright. But maybe it's like this also in nature...?

 

I hope so too! I'm not sure what is the cause. Found one dead this morning, another on its way out I thought it was dead as well, but I could see it's heart beating very weakly so it's still alive for now.

I've been trying to do some research online but it's hard to find similar cases to this in the froglet stage. It might be nutrient deficiency from feeding only one food, bacterial infection, or even a kidney/lymphatic issue stemming from genetic problems since my two adult adfs are most likely siblings. I got them at the same time from the same group that was at my lfs.

I tried to feed them some live chopped blackworms but they werent very interested. I decided to stop feeding for now, just doing water changes if there is some sort of water quality/bacteria issue. I added some indian almond leaves in the water as I heard it can be helpful and the froglets seem to like it a lot! They all crowd around it, either resting on the leaf pieces or hiding under.

Some of them seem to be okay, regardless of what is happening to the others. They are darkening in color and reabsorbing their tails and are starting to really look like tiny versions of my adult adfs! It would be nice if at least a couple of them make it to adulthood

 

I think I've figured out the reason. Unfortunately, I think I am the one who caused this ordeal.

Im pretty sure it's my brine shrimp hatchery. I calculated when my froglets started showing signs of swelling and it matches around the time I started up new hatcheries. I tied wooden chopsticks to the airline tubing to make it straight so that it would reach the bottom of my hatchery, because I found that in my old hatchery, if the airline tubing didn't reach the bottom, many of the eggs just settled to the bottom and clumped together. Of course, I realize now that putting wood in water that way is incredibly stupid of me.

I noticed that mold is growing on the top of the wooden sticks that are poking out of the water but I'm sure that it's all in the hatchery and was definitely going in with the bbs. The little froglets' organs probably couldn't handle the toxic and their organs probably began to fail, making them retain water like this.

It sucks that in the end it was me, but hopefully some make it out okay. I've stopped feeding any bbs yesterday and have been changing the water constantly, hoping to flush out as much toxins as I can.

There are some that aren't particularly swollen, though I can't say for sure that they're unaffected. They've darkened in color and are losing their tails. I've considered separating them into a new container with fresh water to give them the best chance I can, but I'm not sure if this would help them or just stress them out.

I'm sad it came to this, because I really wanted to raise these little guys as happily and healthily as I could. I probably won't raise tadpoles again because of the amount of work it takes, but since it was my first time having my frogs lay eggs, I wanted to give it a try. Although, if I can at least raise one to adulthood, that would be really nice.

I'll keep updating, noting if there's any improvement. The death toll is definitely rising though. So far 2 have died

 

This is really interesting! Please keep us updated! I love the pictures 🙂 sorry to hear about the mold issue... i use chopsticks often too for all sorts of purposes. At least you figured it out.

 

Will do! I was definitely wary of the chopsticks because I figured it would grow mold eventually but I didn't know it would be this fast. I did think I should switch them out to some sort of plastic stick or rod, but I didn't have anything on hand so I just didn't. It's too bad, I wonder what would have happened if everything had gone right. :/

Bump:

Very cool project but I am sorry to see it didn't turn out the way you had hoped. While I have no experience with ADF tads I might be able to provide a couple pointers from raising killi fry and PDF tads.

1. While BBS are a great source of nutrition you really need to keep up with water changes. If ADF tads are particularly sensitive to water quality it could be uneaten BBS that fouled the water and caused the infection. An alternate food source could be monia or daphnia which will not only provide food, but also eat bacteria in the water column. Also a good idea to keep snails in rearing tanks to eat anything you miss when siphoning.

2. Always use Indian Almond Leaf. It has anti microbial and fungal qualities and provides aufwuchs as a food source for tads in their early developing stages. Many tads naturally have high mortality rates and there are many studies where mortality rates increase significantly (like very significantly) if a certain food source isn't present, usually a type of algae.

3. You mentioned that you probably wont try again if you get eggs because of the work involved. Depending on your set up you could always have 2 tanks going and when you notice eggs remove adults to another tank and seed the other with daphnia and other types of microscopic organisms. It might also be beneficial to add green water. Could be worth a try and a low maintenance approach.

4. You also talked about limited info on tad care for these guys. Did you read up on African clawed frogs tadpole care? I know many people raise them successfully and they are similar in origin so it might provide a little insight.

Thank you for this great information! I'll keep all of this in mind if I ever raise them again Good idea about the ACF research though, I didn't think of that! Seems like there's some more information on the clawed frogs

Bump:

I have nothing constructive to add in regard to your efforts raising them, but I wanted to thank you for giving it a try and documenting your efforts. Definitely interesting and something a little different than we usually see here.

Of course it's disappointing to think that something you may have done contributed to whatever caused growth defects, but so much of this is a learning effort and as long as you've learned your efforts were not wasted.

I hope you decide to give this a try again.

Thank you so much for your kind words! It's true, I am quite disappointed in myself, mostly for causing the tadpoles to suffer as I've grown attached to them, seeing them start as eggs and watching them grow up. I definitely learned a lot from this experience, and I hope this journal can perhaps help someone else in the future as well.

 

Very cool project but I am sorry to see it didn't turn out the way you had hoped. While I have no experience with ADF tads I might be able to provide a couple pointers from raising killi fry and PDF tads.

1. While BBS are a great source of nutrition you really need to keep up with water changes. If ADF tads are particularly sensitive to water quality it could be uneaten BBS that fouled the water and caused the infection. An alternate food source could be monia or daphnia which will not only provide food, but also eat bacteria in the water column. Also a good idea to keep snails in rearing tanks to eat anything you miss when siphoning.

2. Always use Indian Almond Leaf. It has anti microbial and fungal qualities and provides aufwuchs as a food source for tads in their early developing stages. Many tads naturally have high mortality rates and there are many studies where mortality rates increase significantly (like very significantly) if a certain food source isn't present, usually a type of algae.

3. You mentioned that you probably wont try again if you get eggs because of the work involved. Depending on your set up you could always have 2 tanks going and when you notice eggs remove adults to another tank and seed the other with daphnia and other types of microscopic organisms. It might also be beneficial to add green water. Could be worth a try and a low maintenance approach.

4. You also talked about limited info on tad care for these guys. Did you read up on African clawed frogs tadpole care? I know many people raise them successfully and they are similar in origin so it might provide a little insight.

 

I have nothing constructive to add in regard to your efforts raising them, but I wanted to thank you for giving it a try and documenting your efforts. Definitely interesting and something a little different than we usually see here.

Of course it's disappointing to think that something you may have done contributed to whatever caused growth defects, but so much of this is a learning effort and as long as you've learned your efforts were not wasted.

I hope you decide to give this a try again.

 

I don’t think you did anything to cause the problems. How much mold, slime, algae, dirt, detritus, pollen and whatever else there is do you think is found in their natural ponds in the wild?

Sounds to me like it could be just the casualties of overbreeding in the hobby. Give it another shot though and see what happens.

Great story though.

 

Sounds to me like it could be just the casualties of overbreeding in the hobby. Give it another shot though and see what happens.

Problem with that is most are wild caught.

 

DAY 33:

So far, 5 have died of complications from the infection. 4 of them were pretty severely swollen, with internal bleeding. 1 of them was a newly morphed frog that seemed relatively healthy and unaffected compared to the others. Didn't think anything was wrong with that one, but I guess not.

I've separated the ones who seem like they might have a chance as to avoid spreading bacteria from the ones who are severely infected, though I'm not sure if it will help at all. It's quite sad to see, because many of them are not dying immediately from the swelling. Some of them have been lying on their backs for days, unable to swim around or eat due to the swelling but are still alive and are still morphing. Their tails are shortening, which means their lungs are growing and soon, if they don't die from either the infection or starvation, they will die from drowning. I wish there was a more humane way to give them peace.

I have about 5 frogs who have successfully morphed, though I don't know if they will make it in the end. They seem to have trouble breaking through the surface of the water to get air so I made the water level quite low to help them out. And funnily enough, even though they had excellent eyesight and aim as tadpoles, they've really become more like adults with their horrible aim. I try to tweezer feed all of them to make sure they can eat something, but it takes a lot patience because even though the food is right in front of their face, they miss over and over, like they're doing it on purpose.

Though a couple of the ones who are officially frogs now definitely seem a bit sick, as they are unable to swim to the bottom of the water because they are buoyant. I'll have to keep watching. Right now I'm feeding everyone live blackworms that I've chopped up into small pieces, but it's hard to get them to see it as food because the worm pieces look quite similar to their poop.

The first picture is one of the newly morphed frogs, and the second picture is one that shows two of the infected froglets. The infected ones that are pictured here actually are not as bad as the ones that have already died. Some of them were very gruesome and painful to look at, because they were so engorged with fluid and had a lot of internal bleeding. Many of them are lying on their backs right now, probably on their way out. I wish there was something more that I could do, but it seems like all I can really do is watch.

I'm not sure how many, or if any at all will survive, but I will continue to update on the progress. Thanks for all your interests and advice

 

I found clove oil works well if they are dying, just rub it on their belly, takes seconds to kill them

 

Thank you for writing about your experience since I've just found myself in the same situation. Eggs here and there and the tadpoles are popping up everywhere now too. They're even in my 1.5 gal tank after topping it off with water from the frog tank. I'll be counting my blessings if any survive. I will definitely try a few things you did and I think you did a great job. Shout out to Rant and Raven, proud froggy parents, congrats!

 

I also have grown them. the first time I read there's a 20% survival rate, so figured I'd get maybe 20 out of 110 eggs. I was so focused on them I got a 95 froglets it was great until I realized I can't house all those frogs. So start small, if they do die for me it was when they were morphing I just fed mine spirulina powder and microworms. did 3 different egg lays. or make sure you have places for them or your going to do lots of water changes. good luck

 

I just found this journal....thanks so much for chronicling your experience! A couple of years ago, I accidentally found myself with frog eggs in my tank. Having absolutely no experience with raising ADF's, and having no idea whatsoever on how to go about it, I decided to keep a record of my attempts on my YouTube channel. (There are a LOT of videos, as I just couldn't keep myself from filming these fascinating creatures.) Somehow, I ended up being pretty successful at it....ended up with around 50-60 frogs that survived. Here's the playlist, if you might find it interesting: