Raising Tadpoles (Day 70) - A New Divider

ribbitingscience (63)in #nature • 8 years ago (edited)

Day 70

This morning, I moved the two smallest froglets out of the 10 gallon froglet aquarium into the 5 gallon holding tank due to the sheer size difference that had developed between them and the largest of the juvenile frogs. I had hoped they would be able to keep pace with the larger ones if I specifically chose them for hand feeding but that clearly was not enough was a safety issue, especially once they had become an easily swallowable size as the largest froglets grew.

As a result, I've chosen to bite the bullet and buy a tank divider for the 10 gallon aquarium as well. I was hoping to be able to wait until the tank switch between the froglets and tadpoles occurred (once the tadpoles had been reduced to 30-40 but it looks like I'll have to buy a tank diver for the 20 gallon in another two weeks or so as well. In the mean time, I'll see about setting up the divider in the main tank for the largest of the juveniles either tomorrow or the next day. In order to minimize ammonia issues, I'm delaying the move of the froglets out of the tadpole tank (and consequently Stranglelove's move back to the tadpole tank) until tomorrow, which should bring us up to a double digit number of froglets in the holding tank until the move in about two, once the new tank divider for the 10 gallon arrives in two days.

I first have to make sure they're big enough to handle the adult-sized sinking pellets, which are also from Xenopus Express - the same company that makes the tadpole food I use. Reptomin sticks are also a very good stable food, that I used with much success for years, but its use would come with two major drawbacks in this situation. First, it would require me breaking them up, which would result in impractically long feeding times for the 20 froglets I currently feed daily. Second, Reptomin sticks float and would require waiting until they had soaked long enough to sink since the froglets haven't been trained to feed at the water surface.