Life Cycle Stages (sorry, mom post here):

Brittanic Encyclopedia online has a cool image depicting the life cycle of a European common frog: https://www.britannica.com/animal/amphibian/General-features

Our tadpole El Gordo is in the late stages now:

El Gordo grows limb buds and our Mosquitofish has babies. . .

Sorry we haven't posted in a while!  The tadpoles have been eating, sleeping, growing, breathing with their gills and eating some more.  We also brought home 10 mosquitofish with our tadpoles.  Yesterday one of the fish had babies.  Mosquitofish give live birth.  The babies, called fish larva, were super tiny.  It was cool to see the baby fish coming out of the mom. 
Then today we noticed limb buds on El Gordo!  They will become its hind legs. 

-Austin, Brayden, & Sydney

*I usually try to let the kids do the blog, but I thought it would be fun for the kids to see a little video of the tadpoles and the fish larva.  Please check out our video here:  https://youtu.be/WnEWngq1qY8

We will try to do some measurements of the tadpoles over the next few weeks. 

Tadpole update and video

All the tadpoles are good.  We have seen them eating off the bottom.  We tested the water in the tank with water quality test strips.  The pH is 7.2, the nitrates are 0 and the nitrites are 0.  We are watching these because if they are too high our tadpoles can die.
Austin's mom here: Check out our video of the tadpoles on YouTube (sorry I couldn't get it to upload directly into the kid's blog)
Tadpole video link:
https://youtu.be/3K4C_eGl32g

Feeding our tadpoles and measuring our tadpoles. . .

Feeding our tadpoles:
We sliced zucchini and put it in the tadpole tank.  We put in thin slices so the tadpoles could eat it.  The zucchini slices float.  We also tried boiled spinach.  The boiled spinach sank to the bottom.  The tadpoles liked the spinach the best so far.

Measuring our tadpoles: 

Measuring our tadpoles was very hard because the tadpoles flop around a lot. One tadpole flopped itself into the filter and we had to grab it out.  To measure the tadpoles we needed a ruler, a pencil, a notebook and the tadpoles (of course).  We took the tadpoles out of the tank one at a time and measured them with a ruler and wrote the measurements down in a notebook.  Tadpole 1 (Sleepy) was 4cm, tadpole 2 (Bob) was 6 cm, tadpole 3 (El Gordo) was 6cm, tadpole 4 (Taddy) was 3 cm, and tadpole 5 (Snorty) was 3 cm. We will do some math with these number tomorrow and share them on the next post.  

** Brayden, Austin and Sydney's mom here:  We will try to add some videos tomorrow!  I am having a few challenges uploading from my iPhone so I will try a different format.  I am guessing the videos are what most of the kids would like to see.  

We got tadpoles!!

We got tadpoles!

To catch tadpoles, we needed a dipnet.  We also needed a glass jar or bucket to hold the tadpoles.  We also needed wading boots to catch the tadpoles.  If you are going to catch tadpoles, you also need tadpoles in the pond to catch tadpoles.  We needed all of these things to catch tadpoles.  We went out on Saturday to a pond at Reach 11 to catch tadpoles.  We went at noon and the tadpoles were all hiding in deeper water.  We also forgot to bring wading boots.  We went back around 5pm and we caught tadpoles, but we needed the wading boots.  We put our tadpoles in a small cooler with pond water.  When we got home, we put the tadpoles in the tank.  We named the tadpoles Taddy, Bob, El Gordo, Sleepy and Snorty.

The trail to the pond at Reach 11.

A bullfrog tadpole.

Sydney kept the tadpoles safe on the bike ride back to the car. 

Tadpoles in the cooler. 

Dip netting for tadpoles. 

Bullfrog tadpoles

Reach 11 pond

Adding tadpoles to our tank.

All About Bullfrogs . . .

The American Bullfrog has a scientific name Rana catesbeiana.  The American Bullfrog is not native.  It is the largest frog in Arizona (8 inches in length or more).  The color of the American Bullfrog is green or greenish-brown.  The American Bullfrog has blotches or bands on its hind legs.  It also has a really large tympanum, which are the

circles behind its eyes.  The tympanum acts like ears for the frog.  It does not have parotid glands because it is not a toad.  The bullfrog tadpoles have little tiny spots on them.  Bullfrogs will eat almost anything it can fit in its mouth and swallow.  That includes fish, native frogs, bats, mammals, snakes (even rattlesnakes) and birds.  Females can lay up to 20,000 eggs in the water!  American Bullfrogs are a threat to our native species, like our native leopard frogs and Mexican Gartersnake.  It can live in rivers, streams, lakes and ponds from sea level up to 7,000 feet. 
We got most of our information from these 2 sources:
1. A Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles in Arizona by Thomas C. Brennan and Andrew T. Holycross.
2. reptilesofaz.org

Tadpole tank set up . . .

We set up a 10 gallon fish tank. First we put the blue rocks in the tank.  I (Austin) put the water in by using a 128 oz., or 1 gallon, jug.  We also put a tiny shipwreck in it.  We put an aerator in it.  Also we put a filter in it that hangs on the side by a wire hanger that our Dad made.  The first time he failed and it didn't work.  I (Austin) added a giant rubber band and it worked.  We calculated the flow rate of the pump and it was 25 gallons per hour.  We also figured out that there are 6.64 gallons of water in the tank.

Tank Set-Up