Raising Tadpoles Day 37 - The Heat Is on (And so Is the Air)
Day 37
A few days of relief from the heat was nice but now it's back to our regularly scheduled summer temperatures. Thankfully we haven't quite hit 90 degrees (32 °C) again. Regardless, this has required me to turn on both the air conditioner for the main tank and the air conditioner in my bedroom to keep things cool enough for the tadpoles as well. Now if I was particularly concerned about cost I could find a place to put the tadpoles next to the main tank but honestly, I like just like being able to wake up and check on them every morning and night. It's been years since I last had the frog tank in my bedroom because their mother, Tiny, developed a habit of jumping at the spray bar of my old ZooMed Nano 511 filter during the time we had it. Dealing with that every night for a month, before I had to move the tank, will not exactly endear spray bars to you but every frog has its own personality, what didn't work for mine may work for yours.
African Clawed Frogs, despite what many assume, are actually cool water frogs, their ideal water temperature range is between 68 and 72 degrees (between 20 and 22 °C). Too much lower and their immune systems can be depressed. Allowing the temperature to climb too high also has the added nastiness of increasing their metabolism (causing them to produce more waste - potentially leading to an ammonia spike) and can create the ideal conditions for a bacterial bloom (which is already highly dangerous for a healthy frog, never mind one that's already stressed due to poor water conditions).
The relief from nearly 90 degree has certainly been a welcome change, however, the temperature constantly being in the 80s (F) is still more than high enough to warrant concern if you don't have air conditioning. I've already had to deal with a heat wave when there was no functioning air conditioner in the house once before, the consequences.of which (including having to deal with Penn-Plax, the company with the worst customer service I have ever experienced) I'll discuss tomorrow...
You've got such great personality dealing with the frogs, it's a thumbs up from me; much love @joyart
Aww thank you. :)
You're welcome
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Yeah. That cover photo was a little unnerving. XD
Merely the 98th tadpole bomber squadron participating in routine training exercises, haha.
It's getting warmer day by day, but a heat wave can be very annoying, especially if it lasts for a long time! I'm so glad that most places have air conditioning nowadays & that I can enjoy the summer outside and still am able to sleep at night :) Seems like your frogs are a lot of work, but I think it's great what you're doing!
Thanks :) Like any pet, the initial setup is the longest part, though tadpoles definitely take much more time than frogs due to the amount of attention to detail required to rear them correctly.
Once you're into a daily routine, I'd estimate it takes about 5 minutes to feed, 10 minutes to test the water, 20 minutes to clean the tank/change the water, and maybe 25 minutes to rinse off the gravel vac and refill the water bottles (now that I think about it, I might time all of this tomorrow just to see for sure).
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