Question
I have a small water feature, about 8' kidney shaped, 14" deep.  Frogs breed in it, and the tadpoles eat every plant I have put in it (down to the stem).  Personally, I much prefer the plants to the tadpoles, but I guess there's no way of keeping frogs from breeding in the pond, so are there plants i can use that the tadpoles won't eat?  I'm looking mainly for surface coverage.  

Answer
Pete,
Thanx for your question.  I have purposely put tadpoles in my pond trying to get a frog colony established and I have never had the problem of tadpoles decimating my plant life.  I believe something else is eating your plants.  Do you have koi?  Koi are notorious for destroying plant life.  Goldfish will nibble a bit but I have not found them to be destructive.  I have waterlilies, lotus, arrowhead, horsetail, swamplily, pickerell, parrotfeather, miniature cattails and three types of water iris, acorus.  Never had a problem.  Tadpoles will feed on decaying plant matter and microscopic plants and animals.  I had water lettuce and water hyacinth and azolla as a floating cover and found that even the koi don't  bother this much.  Like I said, something else is eating the plants.  I hope this helps.
Tom