Tadpoles

Sorry to have kept you all waiting - no doubt with baited breath - for my next installment here. Excuses include being in Mexico, then being in Somerset, then having a massive list of garden and allotment related things I should have been doing when I was in Mexico and Somerset. Some of this I'd planned to write blogs about, but I've been too busy actually doing it all to maintain a cyber presence at the same time.

I'm now back, everything is planted and watered and I've even got tadpoles in the bathtub on my allotment. Time to sit back and look at it all for a minute, and ask everyone to tell me everything they ever knew about tadpoles...

...for instance, I know you can't move frogs to new ponds and you're supposed to start with frogspawn, but is it ok to move them as tadpoles? The water will be different (I know a bit about that from keeping goldfish in an aquarium) and I think mine will be alright because I've used about half rainwater and half tapwater, to which I added chlorine-neutralising stuff designed to make it safe for fish. The tap water tends to be quite acidic around here though, and I've no idea what PH rainwater is likely to be.

And what do they need to eat? Am I right to think I can feed them goldfish food, and how much/how often should I feed them? What should I feed them when they grow into frogs - I'm hoping they'll eat all my slugs, but should I deliberately plant slug-attracting plants near the pond, or will that just stop them hopping further away to eat the ones that are near my crops? Will they get drunk if I also put slug beer traps down?

Suggestions for names would also be very welcome 'cos I guess I need about fifty. They don't exactly have distinctive personality traits yet, but I'll keep you posted.