Can i raise adf tadpoles without raising live food ?

[NewtLover]

i don't want to grow brine shrimp for them

is there daphnia present in aquarium water?

[fishkeeper]

ADF tads are very difficult to raise...at least for me.

I'd reccomend getting ahold of vinegar eels. Daphnia will need to be collected or purchased.

[Jennewt]

There is no daphnia in aquarium water, although there may be some other (smaller) micro-organisms present. These might keep tads alive for the first few weeks. But if you have no live food, I don't think it's worth trying to raise them.

Have you found this yet:
http://www.pipidae.net/breeding_food_adcf.php

[joonas]

After raising these little frogs, I have noticed that there are 3 requirements that should be fulfilled to raise tadpoles succesfully.

1) Tadpoles require slightly alkaline water (pH 7,6 - 7,8).

2) They require extremely small, but alive food items. In the first phase I used zooplankton raised separately and/or transferred from other aquarium. After tadpoles had grown a bit, first stage artemia nymphs were used. (These nymphs can easilly be raised in small scale without pumps, airfilters etc. usually stated as mandatory. All you need is two flat dishs, water, some salt and good quality artemia eggs. And some extra time to run 2 cultures parallel and reconstruct them every two days.)

3) Tadpoles are very sensitive to changes in water quality. Only a small fraction of water should be changed at one time, but changes must happen regularly. I used to change one fourth of the water daily, or sometimes a smaller fraction twice a day. I always took incoming water from well functioning, big aquarium (populated by adult ADFs). This way it included some zooplankton, and did not include harmfull chemicals.

My experience is that raising ADS tadpoles is not very difficult, but it takes more time than raising many other tads.

[fishkeeper]

Hello Joonas.

I experienced constant mortality raising these. Kept them warm, and gave them regular doses of greenwater/artemia. Perhaps I should have done smaller water changes. In any case though the biggest problem was they were seemingly lazy inept hunters despite lots of artemia around. Many eventually starved to death(stomachs became hollow and then they had trouble righting themselves) with many failed attempts at catching artemia. I did eventually get 1 to grow both front/back legs(I began adding micro mozzie larvae to the diet) but it died right before metamorphosis.

[joonas]

Interesting. Maybe it is a water quality problem. I can't think of anything else.

I had zero mortality during tadpole phase. But when metamorphosis took place, also mortality stepped in strongly. Final mortality rate was about 50%. However, all the animals that metamorphosed successfully also achieve sexual maturity.

[fishkeeper]

Interesting. Maybe sometime I will try again.

I did lose a few of the adults half a year later. Perhaps chytrid?

[NewtLover]

i ordered a brine shrimp kit

how do i go about feeding the brine shrimp to the frogs

[caprahircus]

Ive always fed them with small Daphnia.From about 20-30 larvea ive raised one juvenile frog. I had four juveniles, the other three passed away...

Breeding brineshrimp must be the best solution for getting the small food.

[martintruckenbrodt]

Hello,
I've got the best results in breeding Hymenochirus and Pseudhymenochirus in well running or living and filtered tanks with mat filter.
I've made any water change till the frogs are starting the metamorphosis. My personal record are 80 P. merlini froglets raised in a 45 litre tank.
In a living tank they will find some tiny food for the first days. Then they are eating young living Artemia. At least for Hymenochirus it's important that the food is swimming closed to the water surface. So Artemia could be a problem. So perhaps it's better to reduce the water to 10 or 15 cms height. But when the tadpoles are having hind legs then you can increase the water height again. Pseudhymenochirus are little bit more related to the bottom.

Fresh self catched Cyclops are a geat food! Although you can breed Moina. Try to breed Artemia outdoor in bigger tanks and feed them with milk powder, coffee milk or alage water. It's very effective!

Bye Martin

[NewtLover]

I filled my tank with pondwater and plants from my garden pond.

This water had plenty of daphnia swimming around in it.

I managed to raise a tadpole to the frog stage with this method.

He is now eating bloodworms and is growing well.

So pondwater with plenty of microorganisms will keep them healthy.

[lunarisplendere]

I just recently raised about 20 african dwarf frogs from eggs to mature adults and I didn't use any live food. Though, there were always live black worms in the tank (for the parents) and possible other small microorganisms (but I didn't specifically add any myself). I just crushed up fish flakes. I'm not sure if that's the wisest choice, though. Out of about 100 eggs, 50 hatched, 30 reached the tadpole stage with legs, and 20 reached adulthood. By the tadpole with leg stage, they were able to eat live black worms.