Raising Tadpoles (Day 98) - Early to Rise, Late to Start

ribbitingscience (63)in #nature • 6 years ago (edited)

Day 98

I ended up having the maintenance schedule upended today after having to be up by 4 am to bring a relative into the city. After getting back about 5 hours later, I ended up taking a series of fitful naps and only ended up getting around to dealing with the frogs and tadpoles in the early afternoon, around 2 pm. One positive to come out of this is since the air conditioner in my room was on all night, the froglet tank water was significantly cooler than it usually is. I usually try to keep ice packs on hand to help cool the water, it's simply a matter of stilling the ice pack into a Ziploc bag and taping it to float along the side of the tank, once the ice pack is warm, I just put another into the Ziploc bag. Thanks to the obscene amount of ice packs I have, I can effectively cycle the ice packs in and out indefinitely.

Since I didn't have time to move any decor into the 5 gallon holding tank, I've decided to simply surround the tank with thin sheets of Styrofoam to try and keep it from feeling too exposed and potentially stressing out the froglets. I'll probably move the castle and one PVC tube into the holding tank tomorrow since having tight spaces for them to squeeze into will result in happier, less anxious frogs than simply having blocked out most of the external sights. Seeing the differences in personalities emerge is always interesting, for instance, last week when I had Chester and pal in a tank on their own. The two froglets in the 5 gallon were doing well, just days after being put in, becoming more active. Chester was the marksman, while the other was more aggressive in pursuing food, though much less accurate while striking (though became much better in time and is currently one of the largest froglets). The other one is also quite the explorer and was constantly popping out of the castle in unexpected places.