Galvanised bucket in city garden? Tadpoles?

[ziopin]

Hi guys, wonder whether you could help me out here. I have a lovely wildlife pond at the allotments (which is full of frongs spawn), but only really have time to appreciate it a couple of times a week.

My MIL has kindly given me an old galvanished bath and I'm hoping to bring a few of the taddies home from the allotment when they hatch.

Firstly do I need to do anything special to the tin bath, or could I just fill it up with rain water, add a couple of little plants and maybe some kind of shelving/sunbathing area for the tads when they become frogletts?

Also I live in a city garden, have no grass, just a decking area and a flagstone patio, but do have a few boarders with shrubs etc, will the frogs be happy to live in such a garden?

[SteveF48]

In my experience they will try to return to some instinctual 'home' as soon as they become frogs.
I used to find several in my cellar every year in my previous house. I think that we were on a froggy super highway to the local marshes.
Unless you have a fairly substantial pond IMHO (in my humble opinion) you should leave them where they are unless it's unsafe.

[Moonmoth]

Well I think that theres nothing wrong with bringing some home from pond to enjoy , as long as you take them back when they're Froglets, as they wont have anything to eat in your garden unless it has a very healthy population of slugs snails and worms .

[tom00_uk]

best to not move them, can you set the bath up and have some arrive next season or later in this?

[valleyforge]

Originally Posted by ziopin

My MIL has kindly given me an old galvanished bath and I'm hoping to bring a few of the taddies home from the allotment when they hatch.

Firstly do I need to do anything special to the tin bath, or could I just fill it up with rain water, add a couple of little plants and maybe some kind of shelving/sunbathing area for the tads when they become frogletts?

This is just a heads-up notice to mention that zinc is toxic to most forms of aquatic life, so your galvanized bath may not be the most suitable of containers for the tadpoles.

Treating the bath with an appropriate barrier sealant is likely to be much less cost effective than just buying a plastic baby-bath, or similar, I would expect.

[Moonmoth]

Hmm I agree Re Bath prob not a good move, if you go to builders merchants or somewhere like Homebase you could get a plastic cement mixing tray which would probably be fine for them and not too expensive .