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Day 30

As the tadpoles reach the close of their first month, I cannot help but marvel at how much they have grown, from tiny eggs that could fit between the teeth of a comb to free swimming tadpoles well over an inch long. And there's still so much more to come! Currently, most of the tadpoles are at NF stage 54, with the most advanced around stage 55. The tadpoles won't transform from froglets to juvenile frogs until stage 66, in around 28 (some will of course take a bit longer to develop). This means that we're only about half way through our little journey before the tadpoles will be heading out to hopefully find wonderful owners that will take care of them for years to come.

Also, for anyone curious as to how Squiggly swims compared to the other special needs tadpole, you can see the attached (admittedly very poor quality) video. In all the excitement about the improved conditions of one of our malformed tadpoles (thinking on it, perhaps this one was actually stricken by a stroke? Not common but possible, particularly given the recovery.) I completely forgot to mention the other issue with the main tank where I keep my adults yesterday, which is the filter.

One issue with filters that arises from time to time is maintenance and I don't just mean the monthly cleaning that you should do. Over time, parts will breakdown, whether because they, reached the end of their life cycle, such as with the various filter media contained within or have suffered wear and tear due to being one of the few moving parts. Fluval is one of my favorite brands to use due in no small part to the large aftermarket parts market. Many fluvals within a filter series will use the same or similar parts, allowing for third party vendors to make fewer types of replacements. This gives them the ability to free up inventory space and incentivizes them due to the increased demand per part.

Over the past two days, my Fluval 406 had been occasionally making a loud, unpleasant clicking noise when the impeller has started to grind against the walls of the surrounding housing. After a little bit of research, I discovered that the impeller cover eventually will begin to warp slightly as a result of high temperatures. This allows for the impeller to move out of position and disrupts the water flow, quite a design flaw but I've encountered much worse in the past (you'll likely be hearing about that in a future post...). The easiest solution is to just buy another, for around $26 I found a kit that includes a new impeller cover, gasket (which needs to be replaced yearly anyway), impeller, and the ceramic impeller shaft (thus far the only part I've had difficulty in readily finding a quality spare for).

Next Day

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