What do you feed your tadpoles?

[the Julles]

For those of you nursing tadpoles, what do you feed thems?

When I Googled, I came up with "boiled lettuce."  Which is easy enough to make, but kinda a hassle.  They do seem to eat it - but the raw lettuce leaves sit in there untouched.

But ditches and sewers don't have boiled lettuce in them, nor does my koi pond, and tadpoles seem to thrive.  No way am I giving them that commercial mini pelleted stuff - that's just designed for people who think food has to come out of a Wardley's container.

So I was wondering what they eat in the wild (decomposing leaves? - they don't eat decomposing anything in my pond), or what you "keepers" feed yours.

[SheilaJ]

I had green frog tadpoles that loved to eat the algae off the side of the container. I read somewhere to try cheerios, but mine didn't like them much. They did like goldfish flakes.

[LeeAnne151]

They eat algae in my ponds. I don't bring any of them into the house or containers. We sit and watch them all the time outside. They are so fun. Our small front ponds don't have any fish so there is a high survival rate.

[the Julles]

This morning, eating breakfast on the flagstone right beside my pond, I noticed the tadpoles, who hide in the hornwort that covers the top of the pond (got lucky with that this year, for some reason) eating the leftover koi food and trout chow.

A girlfriend had told me she fed dog food to the tadpoles that hatched in a puddle in her yard, but I shied away from that, thinking that dog food wasn't what a tadpole needed.

But if the guys in my pond seem to want the fish food, it's gotta be better than whatever they might suck up off the bottom of a street gutter, or even my tubs.  And easier than the boiled lettuce routine.   

[karen J]

No way am I giving them that commercial mini pelleted stuff - that's just designed for people who think food has to come out of a Wardley's container.

Good for you!

It's been years since I tried raising taddies. I found a couple of links-

http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/tadpoles/index.html - This site has a great lettuce recipe idea.

http://www.rspcasa.asn.au/page?pg=397

The rspcasa site says that "Tadpoles are herbivores (plant eaters)", but then they say taddies will eat egg yolk. Egg Yolks aren't plants. 

If I remember correctly, I did feed mine egg yolk, but only a little. Teresa was a big help when I had my taddies. She explained how they needed certain macronutrients (like protein) at certain times, otherwise they would not develop correctly.
I put rocks in the tub with some pond plants (probably parrots feather, that type of stuff). Added some algae that I pulled from my pond periodically. 

I just checked, and it was 4 years ago that I raised them... so please don't rely on my information! 



From the same batch of taddies-

[Jerry]

I have monywort in my tub as well as koi food.  My guys are now next to the pond, protected by sieve oner the tub.  plenty of room for them to leave  and find the pond.  It is a mere foot away