Raising Tadpoles (Day 52) - Mold
Day 52
Had to bite the bullet and order new zeolite, despite a 50% water change and placing a sizeable third bag in the tank, the ammonia levels remained virtually unchanged, remaining in the 0.5 - 1 ppm range despite having such a large amount of zeolite in the tank. Either the reactivation process, in which the zeolite is baked at 350 F for half an hour to release the trapped ammonia, didn't work (to the best of my knowledge, you should be able to do it at least twice before it's no longer effective) or the zeolite's not working after sitting in the cupboard for 5 months.
I'll leave them in for now since they seem to have a small, but still overall positive effect on the ammonia level, despite getting in the way of cleaning. The tadpoles seem to enjoy the PVC tubes I cut for them but they seem to collect a surprising amount of waste, not to mention what gets trapped between them, the wall, and the zeolite. In order to slowly scale down the use of tadpole food, I've started a new feeding schedule of 15 ml follows by 10 ml around two hours later. As more tadpoles begin their final metamorphosis, I'll lower the food to 10 -10 ml, this will cut down on waste and help remove some upward pressure on ammonia levels.
Speaking of food, keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary in your tank. A few weeks ago, while it was still a regular water container, I noticed a slight pink spot in the container, by last week, it had grown considerably and was obviously some sort of mold in container. Once I had a new container available , I transferred the tadpole suspension over fully to the new container. Earlier today, I bought the old container outside to slightly crack open the top and saw that the gooey pink substance had turned into a white fuzzy on the inside of the container with a terrible smell to boot, had to toss it out. Thankfully there have been no ill effects to the frogs or tadpoles, it seems to have stayed a pinky, slowly growing goo while wet and turned into a white, spore-releasing fuzz only after the water leaves.
