Tadpole feeding problems :(

[taelliejade]

Well, in the block of land where my mother keeps her horses (our house is more near the city) there is a 'drain' its not one of those drains in the city or whatever, more like a trench that stretches along the whole property and in winter is filled with water, and alot of water-life in it.

You can never find the frogs, but you can always hear then xD
But anyway i got a scoop and a bucket and went tadpole catching, in the end i caught four (not really good at it, i know >.<)

well when i went back up the trench i found a dead snail floating in the water with several tadpoles attatched eating it. i though they only fed on algae and greens and such.

But anyway back to my question, when i got them home i put them in a good-sized container filled with dechlorinated water which is fine for them since i see no floating or tilting.
So, i read on a few sites that boiled lettuce is good for them and that they went crazy for it.
not my little tadpoles.
I've tried goldfish flakes aswell but they just don't seem interested : /
also have some of the plants from the trench in there aswell, and a java moss ball also.

could they be eating when im not looking?

Sorry for the wall of text but i just need some help.

-thanks in advance.

 

[John]

Some tadpoles are carnivorous (it's not terribly common but some species are, and I know nothing about NZ herpetology). However most are omnivorous to at least some degree. Just because they were feeding on the snail doesn't make them carnivores, but you might want to try putting a small piece or two of meat in there just to see (cooked won't go nasty as quickly). If they start wrasping on that then you might have a winner.

It would really help you if you tried to find out what species it is (or even the genus). There are usually "keys" for tadpole identification about. I've seen many online but I've never looked for an NZ one.

 

[taelliejade]

thanks john ^^ what kind of meat should i put in there?

although now i don't think i have a problem. since this is my first time rearing tadpoles ive just discorvered how they eat, like algae eating sucker-fish. i saw one of them swimming around strangely at the bottom, but when i looked closely i could see that he was actually feeding. and that they have been eating goldfish flakes too.

oh, and also. i think they might be motobike frogs since they are the only frogs i have ever seen around where i live, another swamp i go too has motorbike frogs.

 

[John]

Yes they sound like typical anuran tadpoles.

I've no idea what a motorbike frog is but don't be so sure that's why they are - many species are much harder to spot than others. You are probably right though!

 

[TristanH]

Jade, the frogs and toads you get in the UK start off mainly by scraping algae from stones and aquatic plants, then become more carnivorous as they get older - especially once back legs start to deevlop. If your tank is reasonably established, it will have plenty of algae, and the tadpoles should also scrape a meal off the water plants.

When I used to rear tadpoles I would suspend a small piece of meat on a string into the tank so the tadpoles could rasp bits off it. This works pretty well - but be careful as the meat goes off after a day or two and can cause the water to go bad (hence the string so I could fish it out again). Fish flakes may be safer in a hot climate. You can also get special reptile pellets from tropical fish shops that sink and should be attractive to tadpoles.

Good luck. Just looked up motorbike frog on wikipedia and they look very cute. Do they make a noise like a motorbike when they call?

Tristan

 

[taelliejade]

thanks for the help :3
yeah, i've heard that they do sound like a motorbike motor.


oh, and another question on meat. what kind of meat should i put in? chicken, beef fish?

 

[TristanH]

I used to put anything that was going spare in. Raw pork or chicken worked pretty well, as I remember. Cooked is ok too - I used to give them a little leftover from the Sunday joint! I used to give them a small piece about 1cm cubed. It goes without saying that you should avoid anything treated with chemicals - salami, ham, that sort of thing. I also used to give them small pieces of mild cheddar cheese.

Tristan

 

[keithp]

I would try feeding them algae wafers, the ones usually fed to bottom feeding fish and goldfish. If you fed goldfish flakes try crushing them first. You could also try feeding chopped up blackworms/bloodworms, even frozen daphnia.

The lettuce you used, was it Romaine or Iceberg? Iceberg lettuce has almost no nutrition, try using Romaine lettuce.