Tadpoles....lots of them!

[Jillian]

Hello!
I'm Jillian and I'm so, so new to all of this. I have always loved ponds and waterfalls but raising 4 children never left time for fun stuff like that! Now that I'm down to just one child  (12 year old "surprise baby" that's a blast!) I'm finding more time for myself...so,  I bought a small, plastic molded 65 gallon pond a few weeks ago at Home Depot and everything was going okay... till yesterday morning when I noticed we had literally 100's of tadpoles swimming back and forth Pac-Man like, eating every little bit of algae off the sides of the pond and plants!
   What should I do?? The algae is almost completely gone, and I'm afraid they will start eating those very expensive plants next!!  Any advise would be very much appreciated!

[Kat]

Welcome!

Feed them some fish food flakes or ground up goldfish/koi food.

[Esther]

They will not eat all your algae and will not eat the plants. It's likely you have toadpoles but could be frogpoles. Toadpoles morph a lot faster than frogs and leave the pond as soon as they get their legs. Have you noticed a lot of highpitched singing coming from your pond? Those are toads. IF no then maybe you do have frogs.

[miguynmkoi]

Welcome Jillian and congrats on the tadpoles whether they be frogs or toads.  I've never heard of them eating plants besides the algae.  Beautiful pond arrangement!

[moondivatx]

Jillian...I encountered the same situation and hated to see them so hungry so I googled.  Tadpoles will eat slices of banana or zucchini, so now I feed a little every few days.  The banana should be just ripe, not green or mushy.  Mine will polish off a slice about as thick as read glasses 1/16" in a day and it's funny to watch'em.  Of course depending on the population I sometimes put in 2-3 slices.  Don't over feed...rotten banana isn't good for water quality.  

Here are videos on youtube about feeding tadpoles....looks like they will eat almost anything.  

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=feeding+tadpoles&aq=f

 

[LeeAnne151]

What should you do?

   Be happy that you are contributing to repopulating local frogs or toads which are in danger world wide (except for bullfrogs and cane toads)

They are not going to harm your pond in any way. They are not going to eat your plants. They might suck the algae off of them but that is all. They don't have teeth.

[2vetts]

if you can get them to eat grass let me know .

[Loritx]

I float a piece of watermellon rind in the pond! They look like watermellon seeds on the rind- they actualy dig into the white part!
About 2 weeks ago we had alot of singing out there and now have lots of BIG Tadpoles!!

[bulldog]

Welcome and best of luck here is what wife says build it and they will come.

[digger-z8]

All you need to do now is sit back & watch the show! 

[Jerry]

.................and send me some!

[Julles]

Jillian, you said, "What do I do?" but you didn't tell us what your goals are.  Do you want to keep the tadpoles?  Or do you want them out of your pond?

As you can see from the replies, we on this site LOVE tadpoles and all sorts of other critters (as long as they don't eat our fish or mess up our lilies ).  That's why you got a zillion replies about how to care for the little guys.

But if you want to eradicate them, let us know, and someone will have a suggestion for that, too.

Meanwhile, WELCOME!