Kristi
March 20th 08, 05:52 PM
I bought 50 bullfrog tadpoles for my classroom, and we are now having
trouble with them. When they arrived only one had died, which I
thought was great. We have had them for about six weeks now, and
hadn't lost any until recently. My students, my husband and I have
all enjoyed watching them develop (albeit very slowly!), and they have
been observed very closely by all of us.
I am using tap water treated with a dechlorinator. At first I was
simply hauling out old water and replacing it with new water that I'd
allowed to settle for 24 hours with the dechlorinator. After about a
week of this, we put in an aquarium filter and were able to reduce the
frequency of water changes to about once or twice a week. The
tadpoles seemed to love the filter and would "surf" on the current it
created, allowing themselves to be sucked up next to the vents
sometimes. This frightened me at first, and I would immediately
unplug the filter until they went about their business. Eventually it
became very obvious that they could all get free of the filter
whenever they wanted to, and that they appeared to actually _like_
spending time with their bellies pressed against the filter. We
observed all the tadpoles doing this at one time or another, with the
biggest ones seeming to do it the most, as would be expected if it
really is a fun sort of thing for them to do . . .???
This week is spring break for us, but we went to school on Monday
morning as usual to feed the tadpoles and check on them. Six of the
smallest were dead with their tails actually stuck IN the filter (as
opposed to them being bellied-up to it as they usually were). We
hadn't recorded any more casualties this week, although we did think
that they didn't look quite right, until this morning we discovered
four more dead ones. Same thing . . . tails in the filter. My
husband is busy rigging up a barrier to prevent any more from getting
directly at the filter, but . . . I'm wondering what is wrong all of a
sudden. We did a water change on Friday before we left, which was two
days before discovering the first wave of deaths. We are currently
getting ready to go buy another aquarium, new gravel and a new net,
then we are going to use water from our well instead of tap water to
fill it, then we will transfer the tadpoles.
They do not appear to have "red leg" or anything red at all on them.
Some of them do appear to have blister-ish sores on their bellies.
The only mortality has been among the less-developed ones so far, but
even the larger, more developed ones don't look just right.
Help! This seems a silly situation, but I've got about 120 kids who
will be coming back Monday to a potentially decimated tadpole
population! We've been enjoying them so much and trying to take very
good care of them according to the instructions we have received . . .
it is very upsetting!
--
--Kristi
trouble with them. When they arrived only one had died, which I
thought was great. We have had them for about six weeks now, and
hadn't lost any until recently. My students, my husband and I have
all enjoyed watching them develop (albeit very slowly!), and they have
been observed very closely by all of us.
I am using tap water treated with a dechlorinator. At first I was
simply hauling out old water and replacing it with new water that I'd
allowed to settle for 24 hours with the dechlorinator. After about a
week of this, we put in an aquarium filter and were able to reduce the
frequency of water changes to about once or twice a week. The
tadpoles seemed to love the filter and would "surf" on the current it
created, allowing themselves to be sucked up next to the vents
sometimes. This frightened me at first, and I would immediately
unplug the filter until they went about their business. Eventually it
became very obvious that they could all get free of the filter
whenever they wanted to, and that they appeared to actually _like_
spending time with their bellies pressed against the filter. We
observed all the tadpoles doing this at one time or another, with the
biggest ones seeming to do it the most, as would be expected if it
really is a fun sort of thing for them to do . . .???
This week is spring break for us, but we went to school on Monday
morning as usual to feed the tadpoles and check on them. Six of the
smallest were dead with their tails actually stuck IN the filter (as
opposed to them being bellied-up to it as they usually were). We
hadn't recorded any more casualties this week, although we did think
that they didn't look quite right, until this morning we discovered
four more dead ones. Same thing . . . tails in the filter. My
husband is busy rigging up a barrier to prevent any more from getting
directly at the filter, but . . . I'm wondering what is wrong all of a
sudden. We did a water change on Friday before we left, which was two
days before discovering the first wave of deaths. We are currently
getting ready to go buy another aquarium, new gravel and a new net,
then we are going to use water from our well instead of tap water to
fill it, then we will transfer the tadpoles.
They do not appear to have "red leg" or anything red at all on them.
Some of them do appear to have blister-ish sores on their bellies.
The only mortality has been among the less-developed ones so far, but
even the larger, more developed ones don't look just right.
Help! This seems a silly situation, but I've got about 120 kids who
will be coming back Monday to a potentially decimated tadpole
population! We've been enjoying them so much and trying to take very
good care of them according to the instructions we have received . . .
it is very upsetting!
--
--Kristi