Fire-Bellied Toads

Question
Hey Thea, Yesterday I bought 2 fire bellied toads (Toad and Toadet) and I just found out that 1 is a boy and 1 is a girl.The female never climbs all she does is sit in the water and sometimes on land and the male is always climbing, swimming, jumping around, and he loves land;The male is always on top of the female and i think one day I am going to have little Fire-Bellied Tadpoles.;The reason why I posted this is to ask you- Is it hard to take care of they eggs and the frogs as they grow?

Answer
Hi Jessi,

Breeding frogs is a little more labour intensive then reptiles but very rewarding. The froglets or toadlets are adorable. It helps to have some basic fish keeping experience but is not critical.

I have been breeding treefrogs, not fire bellies but many aspects are the same. The female will lay the eggs in the water attached to plants and such. You will have better hatching  success if you remove the eggs to a separate aquarium that you have prepared. I use a ten gallon with about 8 inches of water. The water will have to be dechlorinated as it should be for your adults. You will also need a gentle filter that is suitable for fish fry. A good aquarium store will be able to help you with that. Fire bellied eggs need to be kept fairly cool. This site has breeding details that are specific to fire bellies.

http://www.amphibian.co.uk/bombina.html#breed

If you can transfer most or all the water and eggs from the adult cage then that would be best, otherwise transfer as much as you can. Transfer all the "gunk" around the eggs and any infertile looking eggs as well. They take around a week to hatch and at that point are similar to raising fish. I use a combination of flaked fish food, algae wafers and tadpole food for mine.
when they start developing their front legs you will need to lower the water level to 2 or 3 inches. There are filters that are designed to work in small amounts of water, I think mine is one of the Tetra Whisper brand. You will need to provide several pieces of slanted rock or such that allows the babies easy opportunity to crawl out of the water. Once you see them remaining out of the water they can be transfered to a large plastic critter pal type cage. You may have several dozen babies and find it easier to split them up into a couple or even three cages. Keep them on moist paper towel with a shallow water dish. The challenge at this point can be finding appropriate food for them. They need true pinhead (newly hatched) crickets. Many stores sell week old crickets as pinheads or don't have them at all. Flightless fruitflies are another option. The food will have to be calcium/vitamin dusted a couple times a week. From there on it is very similar to keeping adults, just in miniature.