Raising Tadpoles (Day 11) - A Total Glimpse of the Heart

in #nature6 years ago (edited)

First Day
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Day 11

I noticed something quite fascinating before bed two nights ago that many of the tadpole guides will mention. Due to the tadpoles still being transparent outside of their eyes (the yellowish spot you see on them is the food in their stomach), if you look very closely, you can in fact see their tiny little hearts beating! As they age, their heart rate will decrease significantly (as will their activity). African Clawed Frogs tend to be scavengers and ambush predators, generally preferring for the food to come close to them before they strike.

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Had a bit of a scare yesterday, the electrical circuit in the room where I keep my adult frogs shorted due to some faulty lighting. After trying to solve the issue for a while, it dawned on my that the room was dead silent - the filter was off. Had to run an extension cord into the washroom to turn it back on. In general, you don't want your filter having stagnant water for long periods of time, not just due to the lack of cleaning when the filter is off but also the potential damage to the bio-filter.

The bio-filter is the colony of beneficial bacteria that converts the ammonia frog your animals' waste into nitrites and the nitrites into much less harmful nitrates. If the bio-filter gets damaged, you'll enter into a partial cycle for a few days; if the bio-filter colony dies out completely, then you'll enter into a full cycling period that can take 2 months! A tank isn't fully cycled until both ammonia and nitrite levels are at zero, typically nitrate levels will stay constant at around 40. Two water changes a week one 10% in the middle and one 30% change at the end are recommended to keep your tank healthy.

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When they get bigger, I'll be moving them over to the 20 gallon tank (they're growing fast!). Unfortunately, the old cover for the 20 gallon was so rusted that it had to be thrown out, I'll have to buy a new one before I can use it. In the meantime, having switched them into the 5 gallon a few days ago has helped with tank maintenance quite a bit. Caring for them is a one person job and the daily cleaning can be finished in under an hour (depending on how thorough you are with cleaning the bottom of the tank.)

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Quite an interesting journey you have. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks, this is the first time I'll be attempting to raise such a large number. :)

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