Vent tads eating eachother? had 3 heads missing.

Spar · #1 (**permalink**) 01-29-2005, 03:33 AM

Somewhat bummed about it, but definately a lesson learned...

I had been keeping my eyes on a film canister that had 8 eggs in it for the past week. I decided to pull it down tonight to check up on them, and to my surprise there were 2 huge tadpoles in there... along with 3 headless fully-developed-still-in-the-egg tadpoles, and 3 obviously "screwed with" eggs (dead), and was able to save 2 semi-developed-tads still in the egg.

First off, you think some time in the past couple days a male Vent carried in tadpoles into that canister? I would have noticed last week if there were any well-developed eggs.

also, is this normal? I am going out tomorrow to buy some individual cups and a wire-rack to set all of them on. I guess I will have to do more than a 2x per week check on those canisters to make sure nothing else fishy is going on :shock:

Mantellaprince20 · #2 (**permalink**) 01-29-2005, 05:59 AM

Well, my vents haven't produced yet, but I do believe they will easily resort to cannibalism if there isn't a sufficient food supply for them. My mantella laevigata tads do the same thing, I lost my second oldest tadpole due to the elder one chomping him down. On the bright side, they seem to grow faster if they do consumer eggs, as well as developing tads. Every door closed opens a window type of thing I guess,

Ed

#3 (**permalink**) 01-29-2005, 08:46 AM

as far as I know (no personal experience), vent tads are very cannibalistic, whether there's enough food or not.

JWerner · #4 (**permalink**) 01-29-2005, 05:12 PM

Unfortunately, this is normal with the vents. House them in seperate cups - plastic or glass, I don't think it matters. Now you have a little bit of an idea how big they are when they leave the egg. Did they hatch on their own or did you aid them? If I'm on top of things, I aid my tads and place them in individual cups. However, I don't feed them for about two days or until their GI tract is clear of yolk. It is important that you create tea water. Some use Blackwater Extract. I use oak leaves. Early feeding can lead to mouth rot and the acidity of the water can help prevent it.