Day Twenty-Nine: The Pitter Patter of Tiny Feet

March 31: No, not pregnancy – but legs! More than one of the tadpoles have begun to grown legs. One with fairly welly formed legs at this stage has been photographed (see photograph 2 below) but at least one other has been spied with the development of legs. It quite exciting! Their bodies are beginning to form inside their transparent skin. You can clearly see a split between the head and the body.

Also we have new additions to the tank: several tiny snails, which are extremely good at hiding.

Day Twenty – Life in the Tank

22/03/2008: Not a great deal to tell at the moment. The tadpoles continue to grow but at a much less accelerrated rate then before. They’ve settled into living in the fish tank extrememly well. Unfortunately we did lose Runty earlier this week, so his companion was placed into the tank and the bucket emptied. I’m away from the tadpoles for a week but there’s hope that they will have begun to grow legs by the time I return. Watch this space!

Day Fourteen – Moving on Up!

16/03/2008: All but two tadpoles are now happily making a life for themselves in the fish tank. We’ve left the runtiest tadpole (harsh but true) in the bucket because he’s so small and one other to keep him company. But the others are loving it in the tank! We’ve never seen them so active. They’re even tackling the fish! We’ve seen more tha one head butt a fish out of the way and the fish has fled. The tadpoles are having a great time. They’re eating all the algae from the rocks and sides of the tank. We reckon we’ll have froglets by the end of April.

Day Ten – The Tank!

March 11 2008: I must apologise for the missing day nine. I didn’t see the tadpoles yesterday as ex-Tadpole watcher Peter locked them in his room. The tadpoles have now been moved to a more accessible area and the story can continue.

Firstly, we say a sad goodbye to our silver fantail, Kay. Kay died last night after a couple of days of illness. We didn’t know what was wrong with her and there was nothing we could do. R.I.P. Kay.

But the tadpoles however…

Once more they have grown! So much so we decided to try one out in the fish tank. He took to it straight away! We also discovered how smart they are and adapted to living with possible predators. We were bothered that the fish might try to eat him (not that they’d be able to but they could nibble his tail) but we needn’t worry. He’s a skilled hider and can easily out swim the fish when they become interested in him. Keeping an eye on him proved difficult to say the least. But I did manage to get a couple of photos of him in the tank:

In the mean time, the rest of them got moved to another bucket – this time with a filter. We also tried them out with something other than goldfish flakes: frozen waterfleas, which they seemed to like well enough.

Day Eight – Moving House

March 09 2008: We decided they were growing too big for the pyrex dish and so moved the tadpoles into their new home: a bucket. They’ve grown again, but not as much as yesterday and they’re wriggling around all over the place now! Very much enjoying the fish food we’re giving them (as well as some of the plant life we’ve decorated their bucket with). The photographs aren’t so great today – it was darker in the bucket and I couldn’t hold the camera still for the longer shutter needed.

Day Seven – Growth Spurt

March 08 2008: They’re huge! They’re massive, so much bigger than yesterday! It’s amazing how fast they’ve grown. They’re also happily eating the fish food we’re giving them. They’re a little cautious about it at first but soon discover that the food is actually food and just get on with devouring it.

Day Six – The First Feeding

March 07 2008: Today we fed them for the first time. We placed three or four goldfish flakes in the bowl. Eventually we witnessed one tadpole taking tentative nips at one of the flakes and hopefully the news that the flakes were edible spread the the rest of the group started to eat them too. They’ve grown again and lost the fluffy gills they had. They’re also much more active.

Day Five – Exploring the Bowl

March 06 2008: Much more movement today! It’s quite exciting in a way. This is the first time I’ve ever seen tadpoles so I’m finding it exciting. They’re thoroughly exploring their bowl. They’ve also grown quite a bit (I think). Better close-ups today because I changed the lens on my camera (although the redlight is from me sheilding the automatic flash when using macro mode). Hopefully we’ll be able to start feeding them goldfish flakes tomorrow.

Video Diary #1

Sit through the pictures and you’ll see a video of the tadpoles moving!

Day Four – Fully Hatched

March 05 2008: And they’ve hatched! We have witnessed movement both from the surface to the bottom of the bowl as well as some adventurous ones which made it to the other side of the bowl. They’ve developed gills (fluffy things on the side of their head – see photographs) so they can breathe underwater and have begun to eat their now unwanted eggs.