Raising Tadpoles (Day 47) - A Tubular Hack Job
Day 47
With some of the tadpoles roughly a week out from becoming froglets, I decided to start preparing some of the decor for the tadpoles and froglets. On the agenda was dividing of the 1 inch red pvc pipe I had on hand to give them something to hide in when they're startled or just preferring a place not directly in the light.
Really wish I had found a pvc for a decent price, would have sped up the process dramatically. It took around two hours, including breaks in between, to cut the 50 cm section I had into five 10 cm lengths with my somewhat warped hacksaw. I then filed down the ends to get rid of the extra pvc using my rat tail file (only one small enough to fit inside of the pipe. Tomorrow, I'll run some fine sandpaper over the ends to make extra sure there's no sharp bits and then wash them off. After all that, the tubes will be ready for the tank.
Once the tubes are taken care of, all that will be left to do is begin the second pass of filing on the tree decor that was supposed to be the new centerpiece of the main tank until it arrive with a sandpaper-like finish and points sharp enough to dig into skin by simply holding it. I'm hoping this will be the final pass before being able to rinse it off and place it into the tank. I'd like to be able to place that piece into the main tank prior to the froglets being moved in so the frogs will have a new hiding place to explore while their available space to move around in becomes slightly smaller for the time being.
The tank divider is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, in the meantime, I may simply start using the 5 gallon to hold the soon to be froglets once their heads begin to change shape, depending on how soon they start, odds are that the divider will arrive in time for that to simply be an overnight stop on their way to the main tank. If the 20 gallon were large enough to house both the tadpoles and froglets, I would have bought the divider for it instead but ammonia is currently staying constant between 0.5 to 1 ppm and will only rise as the tadpoles continue to grow.
Cool.. That's a brilliant idea
Have you considered putting Zeolite in your filtration system? Another fishkeeping hack: it absorbs ammonia
I actually feel incredibly silly right now, haha, I have two small buckets worth of lab grade zeolite that I used to help out the main tank when I was having cycling issues. Completely forgot about it since it's been hidden in a cupboard for a few months. I'll put some into a a filter bag and place it into the tank itself today since the tadpoles are still a little young for a filter. Thanks for the reminder!
I'm glad you have a solution at hand. I know how lethal ammonia is, especially to little ones