Victor M. Martinez wrote:
A few weeks ago I was walking in the garden and noticed lots of frog eggs
in the pond (it's that time of the year here, also there are lots of baby
goldfish there). I figured that some frog eggs would make a nice snack for
my rainbows and loaches, so I grabbed a few (or so it seemed) and brought
them in. These particular eggs come in long strands of a gooey substance,
kinda like semi-soft jello. The rainbows did in fact go crazy eating the
eggs (so did the SAEs, but the loaches pretty much ignored them). I could
see some eggs left over in the stem plants, but I figured they'd
eventually get eaten, or hatch and then get eaten.
The first problem was the next morning. One of my Melanotaenia praecox was
dead and the other one was dying. I had to euthanize him. My guess is
that they ate too many eggs because no other fish seemed affected.
A couple of days later (it's amazing how fast frog eggs develop in warm
water) there were *dozens* of baby tadpoles all over the tank. I figured
it was ok, they would eventually get eaten and in the meantime they'll
help eat dead plant matter.
Well, they were never eaten and they started growing really fast. They did
a superb job of cleaning all algae from every surface, but that left my
algae eaters without a food supply.
Anyhow, I was watching TV yesterday at I took a peek at the tank. I
noticed an unusual color in my Seachem ammonia detector. It was green
instead of yellow! There was ammonia in my tank!!! Emergency water change
and prunning of old plant matter. Used Prime to neutralize chloramines in
tap water and hopefully some of the ammonia in the tank itself.
I guess the bioload was too much once the tadpoles started growing and my
plants and biobugs were not able to process all the ammonia fast enough.
It never got to toxic levels. Thank goodness for that indicator, I would
not have noticed it otherwise. I managed to fish out about 4 dozen
tadpoles, but there's still quite a few left. I'll start fishing for them
every day, eventually I'll get them all.
So, the moral of the story is: "don't bring frog eggs for snacks, they
won't be eaten and will pollute your water when they hatch".

Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

If the eggs were long strands rather than clumps they were toad eggs,
possibly poisonous. Another reason to not collect frog eggs: all
amphibians are under pressure in the wild.

Sebastien
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