by Anna Hofman

Created on: June 16, 2010

After your tadpoles hatch, they will not require food for the first 24-48 hours as they will still have the protein from the spawn from which they hatched, inside them, which will sustain them for the first few days. Once this has been absorbed fully and they become hungry, they will swim around your pond looking for food. Please note here, that if you want to keep them in a tank, the water MUST be rainwater. Tadpoles will die in tap water as the PH balance is not stable (the water is too hard for them to survive). The other reason you MUST have rain water is so that algae can form, as this is their main food source during the first week or so of their lives. Put in some pond weeds if you don't have any as this will do two things: one, it will oxygenate the water - meaning happy tadpoles and two, it will already have some algae and bacteria on it which will be food for the newly hatched tadpoles.

You will notice that during the first week or so the tadpoles will stay away from each other or just completely ignore each other. They will not fight, although if some of them die after hatching, the others may eat the body for protein - although they are herbivores at the start of their life, and this would be unusual before the age of seven days. Tadpoles will appreciate greenery being put into their tank: most people report that lettuce goes down well, along with other leafy greens. At some point, the tadpoles will require more nutrients, vitamins and protein than what they can absorb from plants and algae and they have been known to eat each other if these needs are not met! Small amounts of bread with a TINY amount of spread marmite on it will send them into a feeding frenzy and the bread is usually eaten very quickly. You should always scoop out bits that are left uneaten, as they will turn the water bad, which you don't want to happen.

You can also try putting one chunk of cat food (any flavour) in their pond or tank and seeing if they take that. In the past, I've had a 50-50 success rate with cat food: some tadpoles will leave it completely and others will go mad for it. Again, I will stress the importance of plants in the pond, not only because they will provide a feeding ground for the tadpoles, but they will provide an area for the tadpoles to hide from other predators. In the past I have kept the forgspawn and tadpoles in the pond and they haven't had a problem growing and eventually reproducing, so the tadpoles should be absolutely fine.

Tadpoles

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