During the first stage xenopus tadpoles are teeny and white. The will cling to the sides of the tank while they are feeding off their yolk sac. Dead and dying tadpoles will be laying on the bottom of the tank. They will begin to free swim in a heads down position within a few days to a week.

 

 

You can begin feeding the tadpoles during this stage and once they are all free swimming. The tadpoles are filter feeders so either a liquid fry food or a finely ground food is needed to nourish them.

 

 

Now the tadpoles have grown quite a bit and now resemble catfish. They have barbs near their mouth and are see-though. You can see their hearts pumping, food in their stomachs and even their brains! They will begin to get arm and leg buds.

 

 

The tadpoles now have their tiny arms and legs. Once they begin to absorb their tails they will not eat food. They use the energy from the tail to nourish themselves. It takes about three days to completely absorb their tail and become a froglet. Do not feed them until the tail is completely gone.

 

 

Now your rather large tadpole has shrunk down to a teeny froglet. Begin feeding your new froglet HBH Frog and Tadpole Bites until it will accept Reptomin or anyother pelleted food for the next 6 months.

 

 

Deformities can occur in tadpoles for many diffrent reasons. If they are not fed proper foods that are high in calcium it can cause bone deformities and they will not grow right. Genetics can also play a factor is tadpole deformities, sometimes they are just born that way. But most often if conditions are not right there can be problems. Unclean water and improper diet can cause death and bone deformities in tadpoles and growing froglets.

 

The key to a high survival rate is keeping the tadpole tanks clean, but not TOO clean. I would do 20-30% water changes every day, using a small cup to gently scoop out old water and replace with new. A turkey baster makes cleaning up the yuck off the bottom of the tank much easier and with little disturbance to the tadpoles. Also, the use of an air stone set on LOW is highly reccomended for a high survival rate.

 

The tadpoles develop at diffrent rates, some being much slower then others. You will need to seprate them out depending on which stage they are in. Use a small cup to gently scoop them out of  the water. NEVER use a net or your hands, the tadpoles are very fragile and touching them could kill them. From egg to froglet the morphing process takes anywhere from 3-12 weeks and sometimes more.

 

 

The tadpoles are filter feeders, so they take in small food particles from the water as they swim. You will need to feed them a liquid or powdered food. I have heard people haveing good results using LiquiFry, a liquid fry food for livebearing fish. I made my own tadpole powder using a blend of three diffrent foods. I used 50% Reptomin, 25% sinking brine shrimp pellets and 25% freeze dried bloodworm. I ground this up to a fine powder and stored it in an empty fish food container. When it came time to feed I mixed a small amount of this (half the size of a dime, to feed 50 tadoples) in a soda bottle cap with water, then i poured this in the tadpole tank. I fed them every day or every other day depending on how full they appeared. You can see the food in their stomachs because they are transparent. I had a 100 % survival rate of 50 tadoples.

 

There are many diffrent ways/methods to raise tadpoles. Just find what works for you and stick with it. 100% survival rates are rare, usually a good bunch do die. I know someone who rasied 250 tadoples to froglets and not one died! So do keep in mind that if you decide to raise tadpoles you may end up with hundreds of frogs who will need homes! I would select as many eggs as you have energy to care for as tadpoles and froglets.