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murky pond after spawning

goldfinchesgoldfinches Posts: 13
in Wildlife gardening

Hi

We have recently moved into a house with an established pond.  It has been full of mating frogs (I would regularly count around 90) for the past 3 weeks, but now the frogs seem to have gone and the pond is covered in spawn.

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 The pond looks very murky and there seems to be algae.  Some of the spawn has hatched but the tadpoles look immobile and dead.  Is this normal? (I know a lot do die off).  Could it be that there not enough oxygen because of the algae?

Is there anything I could do?  I don't know what to plat.  thee is a water plant in there, but I don't know what it is.

Sorry - new to all this!

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Posts

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    Mine went the same, but seems to have settled after a bit of rain, im going to just leave mine alone now til after all the froglets have gone image



    Im looking at your pics on my phone, is there something in the pond to make it easy for things to get out? Thats really the main thing, i dont know much about aquatics, but would be concerned about planting stuff at this stage incase there is something brought in with the plants image
  • goldfinchesgoldfinches Posts: 13

    Hi Bekkie

    There is a little ledge, but we've had soooo much rain that the water level is way higher than usual.  Perhaps I should tip out some water to make the ledge accessible to the froglets.

    Thanks

  • pansyfacepansyface PEAK DISTRICT DerbyshirePosts: 16,903

    The water always gets churned up by the orgies. My fish don't half look peeved.image

    Apophthegm -  a big word for a small thought.
  • nutcutletnutcutlet PeterboroughPosts: 26,158

    When the froglets emerge (not yet) they'll need to leave the pond area, not be stranded on a ledge. Adults can jump up but tiny ones can't. Is there a route out that can be walked by something small?

  • daydaisydaydaisy Posts: 364

    My frogspawn looks just the sane as yours with the tadpoles looking inert and possibly dead! I think they will come to life soon. When I was a child a very long time ago, I collected some frogspawn in a jam jar ,very cruel I know but I was just a child. Anyway one frog survived in the end having probably eaten the others and did manage to leap out of the jam jar. The point is, perhaps they can jump a bit when they become froglets.image

  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,283

    They can jump when they are froglets, but they can't jump so good out of water, they have to be able to climb out.

    It's perfectly normal for the tadpoles to drop to the bottom when they hatch and appear dead. They are not, it is a stage of development, but we do not often get to see it.

    It will probably look rather murky until the tadpoles become free swimming (within a few days of the 'i'm pretending to be dead' stage), they will then feed on all the left over spawn and algae and clear it all up for you. image

  • goldfinchesgoldfinches Posts: 13

    Thanks everyone

    Brilliant!  I thought Mother Nature would have a way of sorting it out image

    I did but a barley bag to hep oxygenate as well.

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