Azureus Tadpole help

I've had really great success with azureus...heres what I do...

-Petri dish under cocohut(s) with just enough distilled water to cover bottom of dish.

-When I pull the eggs, I mist the lid and place it on the dish.

-I keep distilled water half-way up the eggs, until they're near tad stage. At that point I add water to nearly the level of the egg, so if a tad does hatch, it has some room to do its thing.

-I carefully remove the tad with a turkey baster and place it in a deli cup with about 1/2" of distilled water and place a lid on the cup... they're normally pretty motion-less for a week.

-After a week or two and the tad gains some size, I fill the cup with about 2" of spring water with black water extract (properly mixed in a larger container), and add a couple tad bites.

-I used to add moss for the tads to hide under, but later realized its not necessary for survival...but it sounds like a lot of people add it, or a leaf (for some water quality-type aid). I don't anymore, and its had no effect.

-Thats pretty much it, I use the turkey baster to suck out the junk every other week, and I feed em 2-3 tad bites every 7-10 days or so.

Im sorry I didn't answer your granite dish question, but Im not sure of what it is.

Tommy

If you feed the tadpoles adequately with a high protien food, they don't tend to eat each other... there are a lot of people over the years who have reared tinctorius groups communally without any issues.

Even thumbnails can be reared in groups if you can provide them with enough animal protien.

With respect to the OP's issues,

1) what are you using as a supplement for the adults?

2) are the rearing containers sterile when you start? If so are you doing any water tests to see if there are issues with ammonia and/or nitrite?

3) Are you sure your not overfeeding them?

Typically severe agitation like your reporting is because the tadpole is attempting to escape some conditions that it percieves to be an issue (or the severe agitation is due to your stimuli when checking them... (predator escape and has nothing to do with the deaths)).

I don't use a turkey baster as to me it takes too long... I simply use a second tadpole container and pour off the water into the second cup leaving the tadpole in the first container and refill with fresh water. I find this to be much much faster than attempting to use something like a turkey baster... Some institions and froggers use a small fish net and pour all of the water into the net along with the tadpole, refill the container and return the tadpole to the cut.... also very quick....

Ed

Ed

erik s said:

David...Dumb question...have you been keeping your tads separate??? I.e...one per container!!

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once they morph out and are free swimming tads yes I seperate into their own containers.

Dizzle21 said:

I keep my bakhuis tads in their clutch group and havent lost a tad. I believe cannabilism is more prevelant in thumbnails."dont quote me on this"
I use a little rubbermaid drawer container so each drawer is about 6''x6'' with 2 inches of water. easier for feeding and water changes. this is just what works for me tho.

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ive thought about using like a tackle box setup or the boxes that you put fishing lures in. they would be small spaces for each tad but whats everyones thoughts on that?

Ed said:

If you feed the tadpoles adequately with a high protien food, they don't tend to eat each other... there are a lot of people over the years who have reared tinctorius groups communally without any issues.

Even thumbnails can be reared in groups if you can provide them with enough animal protien.

With respect to the OP's issues,

1) what are you using as a supplement for the adults?

2) are the rearing containers sterile when you start? If so are you doing any water tests to see if there are issues with ammonia and/or nitrite?

3) Are you sure your not overfeeding them?

Typically severe agitation like your reporting is because the tadpole is attempting to escape some conditions that it percieves to be an issue (or the severe agitation is due to your stimuli when checking them... (predator escape and has nothing to do with the deaths)).

I don't use a turkey baster as to me it takes too long... I simply use a second tadpole container and pour off the water into the second cup leaving the tadpole in the first container and refill with fresh water. I find this to be much much faster than attempting to use something like a turkey baster... Some institions and froggers use a small fish net and pour all of the water into the net along with the tadpole, refill the container and return the tadpole to the cut.... also very quick....

Ed

Ed

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I supplement the adults with the Repashy plus ICB from joshsfrogs.

Yes I use clean sterile containers for the tads when I put them in.

Pretty sure im not over feeding they was getting one frog bite every 5-7 days depending if it was gone or not.

ive thought about using the turkey baster before but always forget about it when im at the store to buy one. I usually just dump them into their own containers from the petri dish but its not always that easy because there is only so much water on the dish to dump.

My main question im still curious about. If I leave the eggs with the parents on the petri dish just making sure they dont dry out and I place a shallow bowl of water in their tank will the parents transport the tads to the water?
If yes would I be safe to leave the tads in that bowl for a week or so until they get a little more stable and not as "new" and not eat each other in that short amount of time?

In Dendrobates, when the tads are from the same pair there is a lot less aggression then if the tads are mixed together from different pairs (so it's best to keep the tads of different parents separated). Of course this is assuming there is enough food as was already mentioned. That being said, there is usually 1 or 2 tads that fall behind in growth. On the upside, due to what is probably a greater volume of water, you could get some really large tads and resulting froglets. Again, as long as there is enough food. If there are only 2 tads, I would just keep my eye on them as the sub-dominant one has no brothers or sisters to help share any aggression that may arise.

Now the big problem! Unlike some other darts, D. azureus don't always transfer the tads in the viv. If you are willing to experiment, it is really neat to have the tads grow up in the viv.

If your intentions are to pull them anyway, I would just pull them from the beginning, separate them and see if you can correct what you are doing wrong. Maybe you need a more easily available food for the tad in the first few days. I've regularly gone with small amounts of freshly hatched baby brine shrimp (well rinsed and again don't overfeed) just to get them started, as the first few days really sets the tone of the later growth . And then a few days later I'll offer them other larger foods.
Hope this helps.

davidadelp said:

yes i have used tadpole tea atleast i believe I have been. How does everyone else make up a batch of tea to use for their tads.

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There are a lot of different methods by which people make tadpole tea. Some of the most common are to soak materials high in humic acids until the water is the color of weak tea and use or to boil materials high in humic acids to concentrate the humic acids and dilute. Others purchase prepared humic acids like blackwater extract.

davidadelp said:

Im still having the problem. I had 2 eggs hatch and morph to tads and when i put them in their containers of tad tea they were dead by the next day.

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There are two different things that either by themselves or together are causing the deaths.
the first is that the parents may still not have enough vitamin A in the diet. If the frogs were deficient before while breeding, then most of the supplements that contain vitamin A in the form of retinyl/retinol are not sufficient to put the frogs back on track. The addition of a high vitamin A supplement from one to 4 times a month seems to put the frogs back on the right track with the use of the standard formulas being sufficient to maintain the frogs.

The second issue is something is wrong with the water quality.. either before the tadpoles are added or afterwards. Some plastics are a potential problem as they can leach various materials that can either negatively impact the development of the tadpole or even kill it. I've always either used either glass or polypropylene yogurt containers to rear dendrobatid tadpoles. With respect to the tadpoles make sure that you are using containers that are unlikely to leach materials and to control the water you add into those containers. If you are having a lot of problems, you may want to consider either RO or DI water and modify it with RO right (or a similar product) to make sure that you don't have anything in the tapwater causing problems.

Some comments,

Ed