New pictures of my t. gran larvae

This is all so exciting for me because I have never raised newts before this season and I think I am definitely being a little manic So here's my progress and inventory. If anyone has advice or can tell me how things are going from their experience that would be great!

So far I have had
1 squished egg
2 eggs with fungus
9 eggs under observation for fungus
85 eggs shipped out of which 30 are still alive (as of the last I've heard)
123 eggs developing
45 hatched larvae
grand total of 265 eggs
I still saw one more egg in the tank today but I think that they are slowing down on laying.

The larvae seem to be pretty small. At three weeks the oldest is still under an inch long but has developed leg nubs and is eating minced blackworm.

Here are some pictures of the oldest larva and one that hatched today. I also included pictures of the eggs which are at three different stages of development. There's a picture of what could be the last egg and one more of mom and dad.


(I'm sorry to start a new thread but the last time I posted on my old thread it didn't flag it as new.)

Mine look like the third pic to the left on the top row.

Hi Audrey,

They look great.

A few things (you may have heard them from others already):

1) Isolating the eggs and larvae from the parents is a good idea. The parents have no qualms about enjoying a little feast of their offsprings.

2) Giving some cover for the larvae to hide helps not only the animal to feel more comfortable, but if you are raising so many, may reduce cannibalism.

3) Once in awhile, separate out the animals by size and eating skills. This prevents bullying or injury of the smaller/slower developing animals.

I wish you the best of success and hope to see more pictures. (Right when they metamorphose, they are GORGEOUS. The color will go from transparently green to bright orange almost overnight.)

Hi Apples, thanks for your comments.
I have been taking the eggs out of the parents aquarium daily and putting them in tubs. When they hatch, for the time being I have been keeping them in twos with some plant cover, but that may have to change since I have so many of them. Have you raised these before then? They seem to grow very slowly! The only good news is that they seem to be willing to take minced blackworm at a pretty small size - which is way easier for me than brimeshrimp! How big are then when they morph? An unreliable source told me they morph really small. What kind of setup should I put them in when it seems like they are getting to that point? I don't really know what I am doing so your advice is appreciated!

I'm interested too. I got some T. grans eggs a woman mailed to me, and they hatched, but I never had any pics before because they are so shy. But today, finally a picture! I think I have 5-10 larvae in the tank. Thanks for any advice!
Audrey, I hope you don't mind me adding pics to your thread! I thought it would make it easier for any advice we get.

Hi Audrey,
I've raised T. granulosa for a couple of times, but I've never had that much eggs/larvae, congratulations! How many females do you have? My females tend to lay not more than 30 eggs each.

audrey said:

They seem to grow very slowly! The only good news is that they seem to be willing to take minced blackworm at a pretty small size - which is way easier for me than brimeshrimp!

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Yes, they grow much slower than other larvae like triturus, and in my experience they grow even slower after metamorphosis. I'm raising mine (after the brineshrimps) on small Tubifex and after that mainly on bloodworms. They take bloodworms that are quite big.

audrey said:

How big are then when they morph? An unreliable source told me they morph really small. What kind of setup should I put them in when it seems like they are getting to that point? I don't really know what I am doing so your advice is appreciated!

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They tend to morph quite small, at about 3 cm. The size depends on temperature and the amount of food you give them. The lower the temperature, the bigger their size, if you give them enough food (for the first time I have morphs at 4.5 cm this year, temperature was 16 to 18 °C, but I lost all early larvae at temperatures about 13°C).

I've given them a gravel setup with a small waterdish after morphing, feeding them bloodworms/Tubifex on papertowels and fruitflies sometimes a few micro crickets.
I'm trying to raise some aquatic for the first time this year, and it looks quite good untill now. they lost their gills two weeks ago and are still in water, eating well.
I don't know how much time you have to care for your newts and how much food you can get, but in my oppinion it's very hard tor raise so many larvae succesfully. Perhaps you should think of giving some more away or putting some back in their parents tank (not very possible they'll make it there but a few will sometimes).
Good luck
Fabian

Hi Fabian,
I only have one female. At this point she has stopped laying and I think the grand total was 292 eggs!
I'm glad to know that they tend to grow slowly, I was wondering if I was doing something wrong.
Are you feeding live bloodworms than? I can only get frozen ones, but they seem to be eating the blackworm well.
I am keeping mine at a temp of 65F which is close to 18C.
I think I may try to keep mine partially aquatic when they morph.
Yes, I realize that I have a lot of them! I wasn't exactly expecting there to be this many, but I am going to give it my best shot. Luckily I have a pretty flexible job, and husband, for that matter.

My Taricha granulosa larvae from Audrey are doing quite well. They have been growing slowly, but here are some recent pictures of them.

Update

I haven't been able to get any new pictures for a while since I moved the larvae into bigger tubs. Seems like I can't get my camera to focus on the larvae instead of the surface of the water - obviously I'm not a camera expert!
However, things are still going very well. It's pretty cool to see them in all the different sizes of development (what I was trying to get pics of!). I have 12 tubs (about 15 per tub) so far with groups ranging in age from about 2 months old down to the new eggs I just collected today. Speaking of which, they continue to mate daily though the egg production has definitely slowed and she was laying a lot of duds for a while. But she has layed at least 315 eggs now and 3 out of the 7 I collected today were just beginning to form so I know they are fertile, the other 4 are still too young to tell.

Wowzers! That is an insane amount of eggs! What are you feeding them?

new pics

Here are some more recent photos

Here are some photos of my T. granulosa larvae. They hatched around the second week of July. I took 2 of them out of the tank for a photo session today.

One of the shots has the ruler showing inches, one has the ruler showing cm.

Wow Jen yours are larger than my oldest ones are! They look great!
Mine are still growing slowly.

Do you have blackworms? I highly recommend chopped blackworms. The ones in the photo could tackle whole ones, but I'm still chopping them because there are some smaller larvae than these in the group.

All of mine are eating blackworms. I have had them on blackworms from the very first week after hatching. I cut the blackworms into small pieces and increase the size of pieces as the larvae get bigger. What temp are you keeping yours at? Mine are at 65F.

The temperature in their tank is right around 70F. In summer, that's the coolest I can get in my basement.

Are you keeping blackworms with them all the time? I see none in the photos (but I realize you may have shot the photos right after a cleaning).

I've still been feeding all of my larvae from Audrey on mainly Daphnia magna. The largest ones are about an 1.25 inches long right now, I think I'll start feeding them blackworms too. I've also fed them recently on newly hatched goldfish.

False alarm, mine are larger than I thought. The close up pics just made them seem so much bigger than when you look at them from above. I do keep blackworms in their tubs at all times and you got me I take pics right after I clean so that you can't see any food or wastes!

axolotl_jake said:

I've also fed them recently on newly hatched goldfish.

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Goldfish?

I await news about their metamorphosis. Note of caution: they are excellent climbers.

some more pics

a few photos of the largest ones and smallest!