# tadpoles



## AmandaLynn (May 10, 2009)

Has anyone ever raised tadpoles? My kids caught a huge tadpole today and want to raise it. It's really big, I'm guessing a bullfrog. I have no idea what to feed it though. It's in a gallon bucket with silt and water from the pond they caught it in right now. If anyone has any recomendations on how to care for it I would love to hear it.


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## Katnapper (May 10, 2009)

AmandaLynn said:


> Has anyone ever raised tadpoles? My kids caught a huge tadpole today and want to raise it. It's really big, I'm guessing a bullfrog. I have no idea what to feed it though. It's in a gallon bucket with silt and water from the pond they caught it in right now. If anyone has any recomendations on how to care for it I would love to hear it.


Hi Amanda.  I've never raised a tadpole, nor do I know how to raise one... but I'm sure you can find out here:

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&amp;amp...mp;aq=f&amp;oq=  

Best of luck with it!


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## PhilinYuma (May 10, 2009)

AmandaLynn said:


> Has anyone ever raised tadpoles? My kids caught a huge tadpole today and want to raise it. It's really big, I'm guessing a bullfrog. I have no idea what to feed it though. It's in a gallon bucket with silt and water from the pond they caught it in right now. If anyone has any recomendations on how to care for it I would love to hear it.


Yeah, I raised them as a kid, but I'm not sure that the modern tadpole will accept the methods I used 60 years ago! To find Lots of articles on how your kids can raise them, Google &lt;raise tadpoles&gt; (without the arrowy things, of course!).

All we had was a gallon jar, but the key is changing the water regularly (at least every two days) so I hope that the pond isn't too far away. I guess, though, that you could leave tap water out for a day, to let the chlorine escape into the air. One site I read says "use lettuce leaves." We used a small piece of raw meat suspended from a thread, which got truly digusting in a day or two, but either food will attract bacteria and or infusoria which will cloud the water and starve your tadpole of oxygen, so Change That Water! If you can set up a ten gallon aquarium with gravel, a filter and a few pond weeds, that would be even better. As he begins to look more and more like a frog ( he will have four legs and his tail will start growing shorter), make sure that there are rocks for him to climb onto when he is ready to take to the land. Will he escape when he becomes an adult? Of course!


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## Rick (May 11, 2009)

Won't be easy as with fish I would imagine changing the water often is not good. With fish you use partial water changes. I would just go to the pond and get more pond water. We used to find big ones like that. I see it already has back legs so it may not be long before one front leg then another comes out and he will start the transition to land.


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## jameslongo (May 11, 2009)

Wow! That has to be the whale of the tadpole world. It's YUGE!!!


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## Rick (May 11, 2009)

jameslongo said:


> Wow! That has to be the whale of the tadpole world. It's YUGE!!!


Yep. Bullfrog tadpoles are huge. We used to catch them in the creek when we seined as kids.


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## AmandaLynn (May 12, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> Hi Amanda.  I've never raised a tadpole, nor do I know how to raise one... but I'm sure you can find out here:http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&amp;amp...mp;aq=f&amp;oq=
> 
> Best of luck with it!


Thanks!


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## AmandaLynn (May 12, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Yeah, I raised them as a kid, but I'm not sure that the modern tadpole will accept the methods I used 60 years ago! To find Lots of articles on how your kids can raise them, Google &lt;raise tadpoles&gt; (without the arrowy things, of course!).All we had was a gallon jar, but the key is changing the water regularly (at least every two days) so I hope that the pond isn't too far away. I guess, though, that you could leave tap water out for a day, to let the chlorine escape into the air. One site I read says "use lettuce leaves." We used a small piece of raw meat suspended from a thread, which got truly digusting in a day or two, but either food will attract bacteria and or infusoria which will cloud the water and starve your tadpole of oxygen, so Change That Water! If you can set up a ten gallon aquarium with gravel, a filter and a few pond weeds, that would be even better. As he begins to look more and more like a frog ( he will have four legs and his tail will start growing shorter), make sure that there are rocks for him to climb onto when he is ready to take to the land. Will he escape when he becomes an adult? Of course!


Hmm, I did give it some boiled spicach today but it wouldn't go near it. I will put some meat in there tonight, hopfully it will like that better. It has started to grow some little hind legs so mabey giving it meat will help it develop into a frog faster. If it dosn't start eating somthing though I will just put it back in the pond. Probably the best place for it.


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## AmandaLynn (May 12, 2009)

Rick said:


> Won't be easy as with fish I would imagine changing the water often is not good. With fish you use partial water changes. I would just go to the pond and get more pond water. We used to find big ones like that. I see it already has back legs so it may not be long before one front leg then another comes out and he will start the transition to land.


I'm going to change 1/3 of the water everyday or two with fresh pond or rain water and look around for some native aquatic plants to add a little fresh oxegen.


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## AmandaLynn (May 12, 2009)

jameslongo said:


> Wow! That has to be the whale of the tadpole world. It's YUGE!!!


Seriously! The frogs they grow into can get really big as well, like up to 18"!


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## Rick (May 12, 2009)

AmandaLynn said:


> Hmm, I did give it some boiled spicach today but it wouldn't go near it. I will put some meat in there tonight, hopfully it will like that better. It has started to grow some little hind legs so mabey giving it meat will help it develop into a frog faster. If it dosn't start eating somthing though I will just put it back in the pond. Probably the best place for it.


They don't eat meat. It will just spoil and foul the water. Try leafy greens. They eat muck, algae from the pond, etc.


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## Katnapper (May 12, 2009)

Maybe it would eat some fish food? (I'm just guessing here... couldn't hurt to try, I wouldn't think.)



Rick said:


> They don't eat meat. It will just spoil and foul the water. Try leafy greens. They eat muck, algae from the pond, etc.


Hey Rick, do you happen to have a recipe for muck?


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## PhilinYuma (May 12, 2009)

Rick said:


> They don't eat meat. It will just spoil and foul the water. Try leafy greens. They eat muck, algae from the pond, etc.


Rick's right, if course. When I was raising tadpoles, I was living in England -- didn't mean to mislead you, AmandaLynn! If you keep fish, you might want to try feeding it some fish flakes, the green, "vegetarian" kind.

18"! They sure grow large in your part of the country! In most places, I think, they don't get larger than about 8" (20cm).


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## Katnapper (May 12, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> you might want to try feeding it some fish flakes, the green, "vegetarian" kind.


Or maybe some of those "algae disks" like you feed pleco's and catfish with.


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## Rick (May 12, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> Or maybe some of those "algae disks" like you feed pleco's and catfish with.


That is probably a good idea there.


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## AmandaLynn (May 12, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Rick's right, if course. When I was raising tadpoles, I was living in England -- didn't mean to mislead you, AmandaLynn! If you keep fish, you might want to try feeding it some fish flakes, the green, "vegetarian" kind.18"! They sure grow large in your part of the country! In most places, I think, they don't get larger than about 8" (20cm).


Oops!  Correction: 18" head to toe, sorry, I should have mentioned that, so about 8 inches nose to tail.


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## jameslongo (May 12, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> 18"! They sure grow large in your part of the country! In most places, I think, they don't get larger than about 8" (20cm).


I was going to say! :blink: Haha at that size it would not be safe to take your baby outside.


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## adam98150 (May 12, 2009)

If it hasn't been said before, use fish flakes. The tadpole will eventually learn to swim upside down to eat them from the surface, this may take a few days.


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## OGIGA (May 12, 2009)

*gasp* that's a huge tadpole! If I found one like that, I probably wouldn't know it's a tadpole.


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## tonyi (May 13, 2009)

If you feed it fish flakes and other types of dry food that floats on the surface, you can spray the surface a bit with water to make it sink. It will be easier for the tadpole to eat it that way.


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## AmandaLynn (May 15, 2009)

Thanks for all of your responses  I gave it some fish flakes and sprayed them with water so they would sink. I havn't seen it eat or do much of anything but the fish food is gone, so mabey it's just shy and ate it when I wasn't looking. I havn't tried the algae disks yet, but I'm going to pick some up today and hopfully it'll like those too.


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## agent A (Jun 8, 2009)

I have wood frog tadpoles. They do pretty well, and I usually have 40, and right before they become frogs, they mysteriously die off and I'm only left with 6.


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## AmandaLynn (Jun 8, 2009)

agent A said:


> I have wood frog tadpoles. They do pretty well, and I usually have 40, and right before they become frogs, they mysteriously die off and I'm only left with 6.


That's wierd that they die off. Do you change the type of food that you give them?


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## agent A (Jun 8, 2009)

Yes. First it's goldfish flakes, then later on it's special tadpole food.


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