Saga of the Tadpoles

Back in March, Leah and I noticed two polka-dotted gelatinous masses in the wet-weather pond behind our neighbor's house. We thought it would be neat for her Pre-K class to watch tadpoles turn into frogs, so we made a note to keep an eye on the frog eggs and see when they hatched into little swimmers. A few weeks later, the goo was gone and we could see little black tadpoles darting around in the water. We took an aquarium net and scooped up ten. We had a nice little critter box filled with sand and rain water all ready for them. I had even boiled and pureed enough organic lettuce to fill an ice cube tray. The tadpoles went to live in Leah's classroom until the middle of May when school let out for Summer. I revisited the pond a couple of weeks before school was over, and noticed that our tadpoles' brothers and sisters were a bit larger than ours, so I added them to the tank as well. A couple little guys got cannibalized, but I guess that's nature. The ones we had been raising were lighter in color than the new recruits as well. I suppose they were blending in with the sandy bottom of the critter cage.

Anyways, once we had the tadpoles home for the Summer, we transferred them to an old 20 gallon aquarium and added an airstone. Up to this point, they'd been eating about half a lettuce cube every-other day.

One afternoon, we had our playgroup over to play, and I put a towel over the top of the tank so little fingers wouldn't be tempted to reach in and play with the tadpoles or the sand and water. Unfortunately, I forgot and left it on there overnight, and it fell in the tank. The residual detergent produced lots of bubbles (with the help of the airstone), and resulted in the loss of all but two tadpoles over the next few days. I did many water changes until finally there were no more bubbles.

On the last day of May, I went back out to the pond to check on the remaining tadpoles. We had not had much rain in recent weeks. There were tadpoles on top of tadpoles in a tiny mud puddle, with their backs sticking out of the water.

Rather than "let Nature take its course" as James suggested, I showed mercy to the little guys. (After all, frogs are disappearing from ecosystems all over the world!) I scooped up three nets worth of tadpoles and put them in a bucket of clean water, then added them to the 20 gal aquarium with the other two. When Leah and I got around to counting them, we had around 90 tadpoles!

I upped their food to a whole cube every day and added a big rock so they could come up for air as their lungs matured. One of the newbies had legs, and quickly finished his transformation. We released him down by the pond from whence he came, and he hopped off.

Now they seem to have stalled in their development. None of the other tadpoles are growing legs. They are increasingly hungry for protein and nibble on whomever is available. I am about ready to release them all into the backwaters of the river with a "Bon Voyage!" and let Nature take its course.