Tadpoles!

So my cow orker Bill was telling us a couple days ago about how there were sex orgies in his swimming pool.

It was frogs or toads having the orgies, though. This does make the story less interesting. It seems he discovered millions of tadpoles in the water that had collected on the pool cover.

My office mates and I were somewhat skeptical of this, but curious. So the next day Bill brought in a container of tadpoles.

Then everyone wanted some. I wanted some. I wanted to sneak some into my aquariums so that one day there would be frogs all over the house as a special surprise for Debra my wife.

So today Bill brought in a bunch of containers of tadpoles. Here is mine!



Unfortunate, Debra found it sitting on the dining room table when she got home. I was out walking the dog. So I couldn't sneak them into the fishtanks.

Her response was something like "EEEEW." She eventually figured out they were tadpoles, and asked me what I was going to do with them.

I said an omelet might be nice.

She said she couldn't wait until we had our little boy who would be impressed with this gross stuff so I wouldn't bother her with it. (She's pregnant, due in September.)

So the first place I put some tadpoles was in the half-barrel with water lilies on our deck on the roof. I netted a couple, and dipped them in. They swam around in the barrel water happily.



Next I tried the 10 gallon tank, which I use for raising babies. Right now it has three young Kribensis in it.



I added a couple tadpoles, and the kribs came out and gave them a taste, then left them alone.

Next I tried the 40 gallon tank, which has a pair of Nanochromis Parulius or Nudiceps, whatever. They ignored the test tadpole, but the Amano shrimp kept chasing it. I decided this tank was not a good idea.



The black dot in the top center is the tadpole.

The next potential home was a 60 gallon hex tank inhabited by a dwarf green pike (Crenicichla compressiceps) and a Panamanian Sturisoma. Here's the pike:



The pike completely ignored the test tadpole.

I then tested the 29 gallon tank, which has praecox rainbowfish and glass fish and dwarf puffers. They immediately ate the test tadpole.

Last I put some in my big 75 gallon tank, which has tetras, pencilfish, and a couple checkerboard cichlids. They completely ignored the tadpoles.

So I wound up splitting the tadpoles between the 10 gallon tank, the hex tank, and the 75 gallon tank, with the few left I couldn't net dumped in the barrel on the deck. They all seem to be happily wriggling away.

I know the tanks all need cleaned badly. But it's too nice outside not to ride my bike, and it's brevet season and I must train. Despite the unattractiveness of the tanks due to all the algae, they are all healthy and have good water quality. I figure this is actually very good for the tadpoles, because there are a lot of microorganisms living in all that gunk