Day 46
Around 3 of the most advanced tadpoles have now grown out the stubs of their arms to the point that fingers are visible. This places them firmly at NF stage 58. By tomorrow, we can expect to see their elbows sticking out and strong separation of their fingers occurring. The next week will see a tremendous amount of development occur as their legs continue to grow, their arms lengthen, and by the end they'll lose their tadpole heads as they become full-fledged froglets. Fun times ahead!
Now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as I stated previously, the end of this journey will be a race against the clock with a very small margin of error. Ammonia levels are unsurprisingly continuing to slowly rise even with daily 50% water changes due to the 20 being overstocked with the tadpoles being at this size. As a result, I went ahead and bought the tank divider for the 30 gallon so I can begin transitioning any froglets as soon as they're ready in the next few days. I'll be touching base with the wholesaler tomorrow to setup a timeline for bringing them the juvenile frogs and froglets. The end is in sight and once froglets start leaving the tank, the ammonia pressure will be reduced.
After I test the water tomorrow, I'll make a final decision on the new water change schedule, I'll likely be doubling the water changes in order to maintain water conditions, if I had another spare 20 gallon - that'd be ideal but unfortunately, we have to work with what we have on hand at the moment. As far as water changes go, I'm considering either a 50%-50% combination or a 50%-30% intermediary step first depending on the ammonia levels tomorrow. A 50-50 will give the equivalent of a single 75% water change (50% + 25%(50% of 50%)=75%) and a 50-30 will give a 65% equivalent change (50% + 15%(30% of 50%) = 65%). In the meantime, I'll increase the Prime dosage in order to keep the ammonia bound in between water changes.