Do you want to find out what feeds frog tadpoles? Frogs are fairly common household pets. In fact, small children love little frogs and if they are little tadpoles even more.
That they have one is a perfect opportunity to teach them to take responsibility with an easy-to-care-for animal. And to start their care, we will have to find out in this article on our site what frog tadpoles eat.
What does a frog tadpole look like
Tadpoles are the first stage frogs go through at birth. Like many other amphibians, frogs undergo a metamorphosis, from being born as small "larvae" to becoming the adult frog.
As soon as it hatches, the "larva" has a rounded shape, we can only distinguish the head and, therefore, they do not yet have a tail. As metamorphosis progresses, the tail develops and adapts to a shape similar to that of fish. Little by little his body undergoes changes until he transforms into a tadpole.
Frog tadpoles can remain in water for up to three months, breathing through gills provided at birth. It is normal for the tadpole to stick to an object in the aquarium for the first few days and remain still, since it will begin to swim and eat some time later. Therefore, during those first days it may feed on part of the food that is still inside it, later going on to eat what we are going to discuss next.
Feeding frog tadpoles
First of all, if there's one thing we need to keep in mind with tadpoles, it's that they must stay under water until they come out The paws. Under no circumstances should they get out of the water before, as they could die.
First days: herbivorous phase. When they begin to move, after having spent those first days "stuck" anywhere in the aquarium, normally they eat a lot of algae This is because, in At first, tadpoles are mostly herbivorous. Therefore, in those first days the logical thing is that you have a tank full of algae and let him enjoy his first days swimming and eating. Other foods that you can give them are lettuce, spinach or potato skin. Of course, just like the rest of the food, everything is finely ground so that you can eat it and digest it without difficulty.
From the growth of the legs: omnivorous phase. After their legs grow, you will have to start to vary their diet, since will become an omnivorous animal Because it is quite difficult to give them the food that they would eat in the wild (detritus, phytoplankton, periphyton…), we will have to replace this food with other options like these:
- Fish food
- Red larvae
- Mosquito larvae
- Earthworms
- Flies
- Aphids
- Boiled vegetables
Again, remember that everything must be mashed In addition, vegetables should always be boiled and can help prevent indigestion, gas and various stomach problems. Tadpoles are like us, if you don't give them a varied diet, they end up with problems.
How many times should they be fed per day?
Frog tadpoles should eat twice a day in small amounts, although depending on the type of frog this frequency may vary. In addition, as occurs with the feeding of the rest of the fish, we must remove the food if they have not eaten it and we must not add too much to avoid dirtying the fish tank.
Enough of our little guide to feeding for frog tadpolesNow, as always, it's your turn to help us complete this article. What do you feed your frog tadpoles? Have you tried other things that we have not mentioned in the article? Comment and give us your opinion!