How To Get Tadpoles in Your Backyard Pain

I recently built a pond in my backyard. I decided to make it a 'plant' pond, not a koi pond. A few months after the pond was finished, I went outside one morning and saw hundreds of tiny black 'balls' covering the surface of the pond. (see photo) I called my ten year old son outside to show him. He said that they were frog eggs.

My son was right! A few hours later those little black 'balls' started moving. By the time I got home from work they started to resemble tadpoles. The following morning they were swimming! Not knowing what to do, or even that I needed to do anything, I decided to just let them be. I did however take the pump out an wrapped a couple pieces of screen around it. I secured that with some rubber bands. I did this to prevent the tadpoles from getting sucked up into the pump, and I used screen of course, so that the pump would still be able to filter out the dirt, etc...I then put the covered pump back in to the pond, and let the tadpoles be.

A couple of weeks went by and they had only gotten a little bigger. It seemed like it was taking quite awhile for them to turn into frogs, though I did read somewhere that it took a total of twelve weeks for tadpoles to become frogs.

A few evenings after this, on a particularly rainy night, I could hear the sounds of frogs again in my pond. They chirped away well into the wee morning hours. When I left for work the following morning there were once again frog eggs covering the surface of my pond. Upon further inspection though, I noticed that the tadpoles from the first batch were actually eating the new eggs. I thought this was a little odd, but had to be on my way. When I returned home from work that day I took a look in the pond, and the eggs had been gone, and there were only a few new little tadpoles swimming around.. The bigger tadpoles has eaten nearly all of the eggs.

Then it dawned on me! The tadpoles were hungry. That was why they weren't growing as fast as they should be, and that was also why they had eaten almost all the new eggs. I know that in the wild, tadpoles eat algae to survive. I had removed most of the algae from the pond due to the fact that the tadpoles were getting stuck in it and dying, of course not knowing that that is what they ate, so they were very hungry! I needed to get them something to eat. I decided to try giving them some of the tropical fish flakes that I have for my indoor fish. They seemed to like it. I now feed them fish food twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. They swim up to the surface of the water, and boy do they eat!

Since I started feeding them the tropical fish flakes they have doubled in size within a matter of two weeks. The majority of the tadpoles from the first batch now have tiny little back legs. The few that survived from the second batch are also doing well. On top of tadpoles being fun to watch, my son and I learned a few things about them. We learned that they will eat each other if they don't have anything to eat . We also learned that the twelve week time frame to frog hood can vary, as well as that tropical fish flakes are a good source of food for tadpoles., and thy like it!

There isn't much hat you will need to do if you find yourself in a similar situation. If your pond has a pump, cover it with screen, or something similar so that the pump can still do it's job. If there is no algae in your pond you will also need to provide food. The easiest and cheapest thing to feed your tadpoles is tropical fish flakes, or goldfish flakes. Besides those two things, just keep in mind that if the temperature drops, tadpoles will stop growing temporarily until the weather warms up again. I am in Florida, and the weather has just changed very quickly from hot to colder. I was worried about how this would effect the tadpoles, and did a little research, and that's how I found out that they will stop growing., but they won't die considering that you live in an area that doesn't freeze of course. With colder temps you could have tadpoles all the way until the next spring/fall. This is perfectly alright too!

To sum it all up, tadpoles don't take too much work. Their life cycle to frog hood will vary depending on the environment they are in, and also what sort of frog it is as well. The 'typical' amount of time though is twelve weeks, and with proper nutrition, and temperature, you will have little frogs hopping around within three months!