Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In August my kids "rescued" some tadpoles and eggs from a drying puddle near a lake in East Tennessee, where we live. They have all done well; I have them in a 10g tank with a box filter, some emersed rocks and a clamp-on lamp. It also sits in a shaded window, so there's pretty good algae growth, and I feed them previously frozen romaine lettuce leaves.

The peepers are getting pretty big and all have hind legs; a couple have front legs and are losing their tails. The narrowmouths have not developed legs yet; they are much smaller than the peepers. I identified these guys from a tadpole ID key, so it's not absolutely certain that's what they are.

Questions are: when do I release them? Is it a good or bad idea to keep any for pets? Do they need a tall tank, like a tree frog, or a shallow tank? Will I need to start feeding insects when they start staying out of the water? And should I separate the two species?

Thanks for any help you can give me!

That pic is not the tank the tadpoles are in...somehow it automatically downloaded from the picture gallery... That's the CFBN tank....lol

Narrowmouths are the easiest to ID as tadpoles, no other tadpoles has a mouth structure pointing UP.

I don't consider either one of theses species to be good pets. People certainly have successfully kept them, but both of these species are notorious for hiding, especially the fossorial narrowmouths. They eat mostly ants and termites, not the easiest thing to find through winter when they are at the smallest and easiest to starve to death. Peepers will definitely require you breeding crickets with a continuous source of pinheads, or buying them ($$!!). Given the questions you asked, I am provided with an idea of your experience level. I suspect that these species would be difficult for you, without much reward. I have years of experience raising tadpoles, and I certainly wouldn't want the burden of these small frogs as metamorphs.

That leaves us with releasing. The time IS NOW, with the changing season, they will need enough time to metamorph and find a spot to hibernate. Make sure you release them in the same general area of where they were found, in the same watershed, and WITHOUT FISH.

After typing all of that, I realized that Peepers are not going to be around this time of year. Most of them morph in June/July. Chances are you have some other treefrog species. Make an attempt to ID them again, if they are grays, I highly recommend keeping them, although the burden of constantly providing small prey is still applicable. For people who want a treefrog pet, I always recommend grays, and to capture them as tadpoles to minimize your impact on the wild populations.
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"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Governor George W. Bush, Jr.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

Colchicine, thanks so much for replying. I had a feeling you would suggest that they would be difficult to keep; in fact, I had already told my son they neeeded to be released. You think we should release them BEFORE they grow all their legs? We are actually getting rain today (thanks to Rita), but it has been so dry here, I'm not sure how many of the creeks etc are still running.

The question of identity of the biggest tads is interesting. I'm not real sure what a gray tree frog looks like, especially as a tadpole, but I'll start searching. I was suspicious of spring peepers laying eggs in August, but....I'm assuming that a gray needs an arboreal (read: tall) cage.

I don't know how to stop this pic of the CFBN tank showing up w/every post! It's the only pic I have in the photo gallery....sorry....

After looking at the tadpole ID key again, I am not sure that these are grey tree frogs....the tadpoles of H. versicolor appear to have reddish tails, and my guys have goldish tails w/some dark varigation, although not the largish spots the H. versicolor tads seem to have. Maybe a green tree frog?