Are these toad eggs from Cane toads?

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I saw these strings of eggs wrapping around my pond piping. For scale these are 1-1/2" PVC pipes.

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and on the same day I have one of my gold fish died, it's about 2.5" long. The other gold fish are still active, so I don't know if that fish died of eating these eggs, and from my understanding these strings of eggs are from toads, and with the eggs being black in color a high probability these are from cane toads whose eggs and tadpoles are poisonous to fish or any animals that eat them?

So I scoped out as much of it as I can...still have some in unreachable areas as well as below the bridge...

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I don't know if my other gold fish have eaten this. Is it possible to confirm is these are cane toad eggs?
 

Mmathis

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I don’t think you can confirm what they are until they reach a certain stage of larval development. I used to have a chart where you could compare and contrast things like mouth parts, gills, location of eyes……and there are a bunch of amphibious morphological differences to look for. I captured some taddies from a horse pasture that got flooded by heavy rains. I grew them out in a tank so it was super easy to get good, closeup observations. They turned out to be Spotted Southern Leoprd frogs. I returned the survivors to the original horse pasture.

I can’t find that specific site, there are numerous sites…..just search something like “compare and identify tadpoles,” keeping in mind your part of the country in your search.
 
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I cleaned out as much as I could...but two days later I got hundreds of tadpoles, may be more than hundreds.

If these are cane toad tadpoles and poisonous how would one get rid of these? Do I need some sort of leaf vaccuum to siphon the tadpoles out of the pond?

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Mmathis

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Do you have cane toads where you are? Where do you live?

Most pond fish tend to stay away from tadpoles in general, but if they are cane toads, the mature adults are a problem. Depends on what you want to do. Suck them up with a vacuum, or scoop them out with a net.
 
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Yes we have cane toads here. I am in south Florida, Fort Lauderdale specifically. Not sure how to scoop them up, it's an irregular shape, irregular depth pond with thousands of tadpoles.

If I use a leaf vacuum I need one that can get into tight crevices in the pond, anyone has any recommendation?
 
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I don't think scooping them up with a net will help if I am just reducing 25 of them out of thousands.

May be with a right vac I can do better especially if I drain half the pond to get them out of the higher areas.

If I drain down say 10" of my pond, I can reduce the depth to about 18-20 inches. I will have to bring up all the plants to do a thorough vac. Any recommendation for a vac that can siphon out debris including the tadpoles and filter out everything and return the filtered water right back to the pond?
 

Mmathis

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If you’re willing to pay for it, OASE makes a pond vac called the PONDOVAC. I’m not sure what generation they are up to. Mine is about 7 or 8 years old.
 
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Yes we have cane toads here. I am in south Florida, Fort Lauderdale specifically. Not sure how to scoop them up, it's an irregular shape, irregular depth pond with thousands of tadpoles.

If I use a leaf vacuum I need one that can get into tight crevices in the pond, anyone has any recommendation?
Pond vac will suck them up and spit them out.
 

Mmathis

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That's what I was wondering. I assume it can also be used to clean stuff like leaves and seeds that dropped to the bottom of the pond and they will all be caught in the bag.
Yes, that’s exactly the purpose! I like the idea that I can save any trapdoor snails that get sucked up! And, that bag full of debris makes excellent compost!
 
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Hi. Tampa-area here. Ugh. The dreaded, invasive, toxic (potentially fatal to dogs who ingest one) cane toad. U Florida has amphibian Identification assistance. Here's a summary of resources (they were very helpful to me). https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/herp_id_help.shtml That being said, I don't think goldfish generally eat toad eggs, as they're not very palatable. I once saw a black racer snake change its mind about eating a cane toad, spitting it out (I euthanized the toad). I net out egg strings like that and any tadpole "blooms" that quckly follow (assuming they're cane toads) with a small net, hoping I'm not taking out native frogs. Ahhh, life in Florida...
 

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