My red eye treefrog eggs

[fluxlizard]

Hey guys!

Last fall my son and I acquired some red eye treefrogs and cycled them over the winter and this past week we got them to breed.

Here are some pics of the eggs.

Taken a few days ago when they were laid. There are actually two blobs of eggs- one on each side of the same leaf.

Here is the other side of the same leaf taken today. There was a bit of root in the egg mass, so I cut it and left it in there when I removed the leaf from the breeding enclosure. You can see eyes developing on them today!

They are wiggling around in the eggs every now and then. It's so cool!

 

[draetish]

How awesome is that! you can actually see the little tadpoles, way too go

 

[jessica]

Wow those are really cool pictures!

 

[james L]

Super Kool! Goodluck with them!

 

[CleaTheChameleon]

WOW thats awesome! Good luck with them!

Congrats thanks for sharing

 

[ktravelet]

that is amazing. How that many eggs come out of a small red eye is crazy too.

 

[ponders]

That is very cool. They develop fast. Do they wiggle and drop into the water when they are ready?
I'd be interested in one if you have extras when they get old enough.

 

[Miss Lily]

Absolutely fascinating! Please keep the pics coming so we can watch them develop too!

 

[FroggtheCham]

That is WAY too cool!!! Thank for sharing this!! We'll be watching the progress and awaiting pictures!!

 

[fluxlizard]

Here's another one taken this morning:

The eyes and skin are a bit darker now.

Do they wiggle and drop into the water when they are ready?

Yes. The eggs are laid on leaves above water and after a few days the tadpoles wriggle out of the eggs and drop into the water below.

Because the eggs are on 2 sides of the same leaf, I'm not sure if this was from 1 or two females (We have 2 females and 5 males - My son and I thought we had 3 females but one of them ended up being a really large male and started singing once we set up the rain chamber for breeding). I kind of think it is from 2 females because both masses of eggs each look like they take up about the same volume as 1 frog if it were sitting on the leaf. Which is really amazing to me!

 

[hondataeg6]

Thats so Awesome, you need to take more pictures of their habitar.

 

[chams1]

That is SO cool! Thanks for sharing! Agreed - I would love to see your habitat or what you have for the tadpoles to fall into. Great job!

 

[Psychotic4mb3r]

I want some adult red eyes. Ive been wanting to try and breed some .. I had 2 little babies but they died..

 

[fluxlizard]

Here is today's update. Tadpoles are much darker now- skin getting pigment looking more developed. Wondering when they will drop. 1st pic is the other side of the leaf. Hard to photograph that side but more eggs over there- was swinging on the string a little so focus is off.

Here is the usual side of the leaf:

A closeup:

Setup at the moment:

Not the greatest pic because of the backlighting. But it is a very utilitarian setup at the moment anyway. Made of 73 qt rubbermaid storage tubs. Overwinter we had the frogs similar to the double stacks, 4 males in one 3 females in other (later found out 1 of those was male LOL). Plenty of foliage from pothos vines and sticks to climb on. They have to be kept dryer and cooler for cycling, and they poop a good bit and are susceptible to skin problems from bacteria and the like, so we used very basic setups that were easy to keep clean- the pothos were just put in the water containers- no soil. paper towels for substrate.

Now, the tub on the right is temporary for fattening up the frogs for our rainy weekend coming up to try and make certain we got the eggs from both females before we stop for a while.

The middle tub is the rain chamber- you can see the disconnected pump. Flexible tubing the correct size for the pump (smallest pond pump from lowes) runs up to the top of the top tub and is fastened there and laid out in a big circle on the ceiling. We drilled a number of holes in the tubing, and that is what makes the "rain". When in use, there is enough water on the bottom for the pump to function- maybe 4 inches deep and we float more pothos in the water so the frogs can easily climb out.

The tub on the left is the incubator. The leaf with eggs was cut off the pothos in the middle tub and moved to the left, we tied it to strings (which is why the top tub is there really- to hold the strings LOL also to help provide some, but not too much ventilation so the eggs have fresh air but do not dry out). The sponge filter is already set up and running and we took a few plants from our aquarium that we have had set up for many years so we could "seed" the filter and water with beneficial bacteria and to try and help give the tadpoles cover and keep the water a little cleaner (maybe) once they hatch and we have to begin feeding. We will remove the top tub at that time and probably set up several tadpole tubs.

I think for the summer we will set up the adult frogs in something a little nicer - maybe a 175 gallon reptarium with plenty of branches and foliage and place it out in the yard where it is shady most of the day so they can get fresh air and real rain. My son and I are still discussing this. Because we got the frogs in the fall, we have only kept them in quarantine and then in cooling cycling type environment prior to breeding them.

 

[Monkeykungphu]

That's a great little breeding operation you've got going on. Did you come up with most of these techniques yourself? Looks like it worked great, you have a ton of eggs!

 

[fluxlizard]

I sort of came up with stuff myself. I haven't been able to find clear step by step instructions anywhere. I did get enough to understand that they should be kept cooler and with less humidity and less food to cycle, and then warm up and feed more and then put them in a rain chamber for breeding.

I tried to use nature to our advantage- we have cooler ambient temps in home during the winter and warmer in the spring/summer. I was a little worried though- we had warmer temperatures for a while this year before we had rain. The frogs are sensitive to barometric pressure from rain storms, so the best time to put in the rain chamber is when it is actually raining outside. I was a little worried that we didn't go very fast from cool and dry to warm and rainy, and it took a few rainstorms before the frogs finally started breeding (several rainy days over 2 weeks time).

The other thing I have learned- can't remember where- is that these frogs should not be kept very humid outside of breeding- it can kill them if you follow most of the care sheets on the net and keep them at 80-100% humidity all the time. They will use a water dish to rehydrate no problem and do not require misting and such outside of breeding attempts. At least not where I live- maybe if you live in a desert area you might need more humidity.

The tubs were my idea- not one of my best. The blobs on the middle tub sides are bits of modeling clay we had to use to plug some of the ventilation holes we used over the winter because water was leaking out of them when it rained. The dark stuff in the middle is a cut up plastic table cloth - we taped it to the outside of the upper tub, and tucked it into the lower tub so water would not leak out between the tubs but drain into the lower tub. The skirt works, but we will have to come up with something simpler next year. Getting in to remove the frogs when it isn't a rainy day is a 2 man job with the skirt and kind of a pain. Ideally a tub slightly smaller for the top so it sits inside the rim of the bottom tub would be perfect, but don't know if we will find perfection or have to come up with something else.

Same for the incubator- the upper tub is completely unnecessary except for the need for ventilation and the air holes made nice places to tie our string to so we could hang the egg covered leaf above the water. Needs some tweaking.

But yeah- it worked this time for us.

Today we have the first few tadpoles dropped into the water. I actually saw one a few minutes ago drop into the water- took off wiggling like crazy!

My son had a little scare- some of the tads lie on their sides when they first drop in, and we thought maybe they were dead. We took an aquarium net to try and poke one and see but when the net got close up he got and took off. I guess they just need a little rest after dropping in. There was a lot of happy cheering when they took off at the approaching net.

Sorry today's pic is blurry- hard to get the camera to focus through the plastic.

 

[ijmccollum]

I am astounded, amazed, and well... speechless. Way to go, and HUGE CONGRATS!

 

[CleaTheChameleon]

WOW congrats!

How long until they start to develop arms and legs?

 

[fluxlizard]

I'm not sure about the arms and legs. I think it takes them a couple of months to turn into little frogs.

 

[Miss Lily]

Thanks for posting an update! They are so cool! The tadpoles hatch quite quickly then by the looks of it!