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Tadpoles Dropping Dead: |
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lalchitri Senior Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 No. of posts: 132  View other posts by lalchitri |
Posted: 06 Jun 2006 I recently moved to a new house. In my previous home I had kept common frogs successfully in a garden pond I had made for many years. I decided to do likewise in my new garden, so this winter I dug a hole and put a 250 litre artificial pond in. Into this I put 3 clumps of frog spawn I took from a friend's garden pond which is too small for all the spawn he gets. These hatched and grew successfully upto the point where the hind legs began to develop, having fed them mainly on ground fish food pellets. This seemed to be doing the trick as in the first 3 months none of the 300-400 tadpoles seemed to have died (I put a net over the pond to keep birds/foxes/cats away). However, 36 hours ago I noticed a few of the tadpoles dying. Within a day almost all of the 300-400 had died. This has left me shocked and confused. What could be the possible reasons for a batch of tadpoles to grow to a certain point without any hitch and then to suddenly drop dead within 24 hours? I have rescued about 40-50 odd survivors and put them in a fish tank where they seem to be doing fine. The only thing I can think of is that this occured just after we returned from a long weekend in the Lake District. In the meantime I instructed someone else to put the fish food in. I think he must have gone overboard, since I usually get through a packet in 10-14 days and he shoved the whole lot in within 3-4 days. I managed to take most of the excess out on my return. Could this have lead to the disaster? The pond has also been emitting a foul odour, but this has been present for many weeks without any untoward effect on the tadpoles previously? I have put about 10 oxygenating plants into the 250l pond. The only other noticeable point is that my tadpoles were much larger than those I had seen in other ponds (at least 3 times bigger than ones I saw in a natural pond in the Lake District).  Reformed Teetotaller |
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Suzi Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 No. of posts: 860  View other posts by Suzi |
Posted: 06 Jun 2006 I would think that the water had soured and that is what caused the disaster. Probably a combination of the water getting warm, as we have had hot weather recently, and the putrefaction caused by excess fish food. With regards to large size of taddies on another thread someone said that it is detrimental to their well being to grow too fast on bought feed. Am I right in thinking a 250 litre pond is not very large? Again the smaller the volume the quicker the water would overheat and the overfeeding would have more of a putrefaction effect in a small volume of water. Anyway sorry to hear of your disaster. It is always upsetting when things like this happen but many of us have had disasters and it happens in nature as well. Suz |
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lalchitri Senior Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 No. of posts: 132 View other posts by lalchitri |
Posted: 20 Jun 2006 managed to get 56 froglets from 3 clumps of spawn. is this a good return? of the 56 i've only noticed about 10 in the pond for the past few days. the others seem to have left the pond apart from one drowned froglet who somehow couldn't exit the water. what can i assume happened to the rest? can they survive this long away from the pond? if they wander off too far, do they get lost and dry up in the sun? i can see no sign of them in the surrounding area, though we do have some deep undergrowth where it is difficult to search. i'm also reluctant to search too much as i'm scared of stepping on these difficult to spot thumbnail sized hoppers. Reformed Teetotaller |
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Suzi Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 No. of posts: 860 View other posts by Suzi |
Posted: 20 Jun 2006 Your froglets will seek cover to avoid drying up. If it rained you might see them hopping about. Some will be lost to predators and some to natural causes. There might be accidents as well that will reduce the numbers even more. Suz |
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