Tadpole Farmer

In a tragic accident over April vacation, all of Aliya's classroom's tadpoles expired, leaving a stinky brown soup of decomposing tadpoles in an inch of water. Oy. Aliya's teacher cleaned the tank and gathered some tadpoles from each of the other classrooms, and asked me to help keep them alive. Oh the pressure!!!

This is what they looked like the first day I went in to clean the tank, armed with my internet research on the care and feeding of tadpoles. I need to take an updated photo because they are much bigger and happier now. None of them have sprouted anything yet...I thought I saw something one day but it was a hanging strand of poop. My procedure is to suck up the old food and poop off the bottom of the tank with my turkey baster, which I have permanently donated to the cause. Then I refill the water with tap water mixed with water conditioner to remove the chlorine. The school had been using distilled water, which apparently won't support life because it has no minerals or ions. I also read that tadpoles need a rock so they can climb out of the water when they sprout legs, or they can drown from being forced to swim 24/7. Who knew? After a week of trying to get to the pond to find a suitable rock, I grabbed one from the yard and stuck it in Aliya's backpack this morning. I hope it didn't kill them off.

The sad thing is now that I'm fully committed to sustaining life and easing the little suckers' way through metamorphosis, if they eventually turn into frogs they can't be set free to go and frolic amongst the native pond inhabitants because they may be frogs that aren't indigenous to Massachusetts. So now I need to research how to humanely kill them. WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
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