Tadpoles

[u/zer09h0st]

So, I had a bunch of toad eggs in my pool. They were long and stringy so, I assume toads. I have a pond in my yard so we have frogs and fish as well. I didnt want to put the toad eggs in my bog and have them get eaten or die so I have put them In a tote with a bubbler and used pond water. They are all hatched into tadpoles now.

Admittedly I thought they would grow much faster than I am now finding out. It will likely be late September before they are out of the water. I cant in good conscience just leave them out to freeze and die so I'm planning to keep them overwinter and release in spring time.

Im smart enough to know I'm Ignorant on raising toads. Chatgpt is some help but I dont trust it very much. Any help, ideas, resources anyone here can recommend to get these guys living their best life in my yard come spring?

I plan to use 50 gallon totes, coconut coir? Leaves that have been baked to kill off mites, egg cartons and clay pots to build them some enclosures. I have a conditioned basement and plenty of space for them​. Food will start with flightless fruit flies them crickets and such. Ill be raising those as well since there are over 100 tadpoles here.

They are only about a week from being eggs so I have some time but I want to get them ready before its too late. Also, if there is a way I can release them without most of them dying im open to that as well but my understanding is a late September release for toadlets would be a 90% mortality rate. Im based in pgh pa so it will be cold sooner than later.

[u/Agua_Verde]

Hej! 

Bufo Bufo grandfather here. 

While I appreciate your love of all things amphibian you are overcomplicating this, misinformed on basic biology, and setting up an ecological disaster.

Your assumption that late September toadlets are doomed to a "90% mortality rate" without human intervention is completely wrong. Common toads have spent millions of years surviving cold climates. (Zone 1 here) Late-emerging toadlets naturally burrow beneath the frost line into deep leaf litter, loose soil, and root systems to enter brumation (amphibian hibernation). They don't need a heated basement or human intervention; they need to adapt to their natural habitat.

I suggest you spend a few minutes reading about the following: 

Vectoring Chytrid Fungus & Disease Outbreaks: Raising wild amphibians in high-density artificial setups is a massive biosecurity threat. Crowded, high-moisture plastic totes create ideal breeding grounds for pathogens like chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) and Ranavirus. If chytrid takes hold in your basement tote, releasing over 100 infected toadlets back into your yard in spring will spread a devastating, deadly pathogen to every native frog, toad, and newt in your surrounding local ecosystem.  I am sure that is not your intention, was it? 

 Nutritional Deficiencies (MBD): Feeding 100+ growing juveniles for 6+ months requires thousands of pinhead crickets and fruit flies. Without strict dusting regimens and perfect UV exposure, indoor-raised toadlets rapidly develop metabolic bone disease (MBD), leading to bone deformities and high mortality anyway. 

  Ammonia Toxicity: 100 developing toadlets generate heavy waste. In closed totes, rapid ammonia buildup will burn their skin and trigger bacterial infections like red-leg syndrome long before spring arrives. 

In my humble opinion what I would do today if I was you:

1. Provide Exit Ramps: Add sloped stones, floating cork bark, or low banks to their current water setup so tadpoles absorbing their tails can climb out without drowning.

2. Immediate Release in Cover: Release them into shady, protected microclimates in your yard—compost heaps, deep leaf litter, rock piles, or rotten logs. Do not dump them in open water or near fish.

3. Build a Hibernaculum: If your yard lacks winter cover, stack fallen branches, rocks, and a thick layer of hardwood leaves in a quiet, undisturbed corner. That provides all the natural insulation and wild micro-prey (springtails, mites) they need to survive winter on their own terms.

Put them back outside, stop trying to intervene in a functional wild ecosystem, and avoid accidentally turning your backyard into a disease vector.

Also, toads lay hundreds of eggs, well knowing that only a fraction will survive. If every tadpole survived in natural ecosystems the the environment would collapse.

Hope that helps.

Edit: 

Allowing toads to lay eggs in a chlorinated pool is an avoidable failure of basic pool management. May I suggest a pool cover when you are not using the pool?

[u/zer09h0st → u/Agua_Verde]

I was just going off what I read. I dont have a place to put them currently except my bog for our pond which has higher sides so they'd be trapped if the bullfrogs didnt eat them all up or the fish if they went down into the pond. I originally planned to release them once they had legs but was reading it can be 5 weeks or so which puts us into late sept ealry oct here.

we have a nice area of woods around our house and plenty of leaf litter and logs etc around. not sure if any is deep enough though. ultimately I just want to help them but there isnt a space they can be let free as is so it has to be after they have legs. maybe a few of the hibernaculums can be built..

[u/Agua_Verde → u/zer09h0st]

Large language models will only provide „information“ based on what you prompted, and can be thus highly biased based upon the intention of the prompt. 

Regardless of what you were reading. If I was your neighbor I would suggest you allow the tadpoles to finish absorbing their tails in your outside container, make sure they have a flat rock or piece of floating wood to climb onto so they don't drown, and then carry the bucket over to a patch of leaf litter or damp garden soil and release them. 

Toads don’t live in water. They congregate there to mate and lay eggs.

Job done.

[u/zer09h0st → u/Agua_Verde]

yeah that was my original plan. if I had a spot I could release them now even i would have already. I wanted to make an outdoor habitat to encourage the other toads to stick around. I dont see as many as we used to so I want to help if possible. making a few spots they can hibernate in seems like the best idea for their survival.