Raising Tadpoles (Day 39) - The Oily Film

Day 1: https://steemit.com/nature/@ribbitingscience/raising-tadpoles-days-0-2

Day 39 - The tadpoles are certainly beginning to show their smarts. Every day, the tadpoles go up to the side of the tank facing me and swim around waiting for food at the same feeding time every day. I'm considering splitting up the feedings to twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, while increasing the feeding to 22 ml per feeding. To start, however, I think I'll split the schedule to two 15 ml feedings twice a day to see how the tadpoles react (I also need to find an empty milk gallon to figure out how much tadpole suspension (tadpole powder mixed into water) is in the jug. I've been eyeballing it so far but will need to accurately know if I have enough left to cover increasing the feedings - the sooner I know if I'll have to order more tadpole powder, the better.

Another issue has popped up that you may not be aware of unless you've actively maintained an aquarium before. Many foods for aquatic animals contain oils, whether for preservation or nutrition depends on the food. Xenopus.com's frog food, which I believe contains the same ingredients as the tadpole powder, includes fish oil. Due to a lack of surface agitation to prevent the oil from clumping, an oily film built up on the water's surface. Thankfully this is an extremely easy fix, just put on a pair of rubber gloves and run a clean paper towel over the surface to remove the film. I also tried using one of the sections of window screen I previously cut a when I first put the tadpoles into the 20 gallon tank and found similar results if folded. I'll have to keep testing to confirm, it does offer the benefit of being reusable. I'll have ample opportunity to try it out tomorrow since I ran out of paper towels yesterday (had to use one of the thick paper napkins I had on hand for today).