Ambystoma tigrinum: successful breeding

[MarioR]

Thanks Niels

Update:
They keep growing and growing.

8cm long and kept in a white box.

6cm long and kept on brown ground.

 

[TomaszJanulewic]

Hi Mario!
AWWW THEY ARE SO CUTE!! :3
I see that the larvae change coloration depending on the environment - interesting!I will be interesting what a difference color of them after metamorphosis!
regards, Tomasz

 

[MarioR]

Hey,

the first four entered the land.
Here's a picture of the first two:

The bigger one was the very light coloured larva from my post before.


The metamorph on this picture is from my outside-tank. The colour is very different to the others from inside:

Let's see how they develop

 

[grius]

This is great! We need more tiger breeding.

Well done!

 

[Jan]

Big congrats and please keep us updated!

 

[MarioR]

More than half of the larvae morphes in the meantime.


Here are 22 of 26 metamorphes I got so far.

Some got a spectacular colouration for A. tigrinum from that location:

The smallest and the biggest metamorph together. 8 and 16cm in total lenght (about 3 and 6'')

 

[grius]

Simply awesome! Congrats again.

 

[MarioR]

Third time in a row: Ambystomatidae - Die Welt der amphiben Maulwürfe

After two weeks outside the conditions were perfect: Rain and 7-14°C outside.

What a great season!

 

[Azhael]

Holy FSM, Mario, you are on a roll! xD
This indeed seems to be a fantastic year for ambystomatid captive breeding. I have the urge to do a little dance.

 

[John]

Congratulations! But when does it become captive breeding versus letting them breed naturally?

 

[MarioR]

It comes to captive breedings when you keep a species and they breed? :wacko:

In my opinion natural breeding occures in their natural environment without people telling them when they have to live in an aquarium or on land

 

[Soe]

Hi
I am also the proud owner of the same locality of tigrinum.
The story starts back in 2011, where I got some eggs from Martin ( Megs) and placed them in a tank in my wintergarden. They developed into newt quickly, and started to grow and grow. Unfortunately we got an uexpected hot day while on work, and when I came home all larvae was upside down. 4 of them still had a little movement in the gills, but the rest was dead
In the panik the only solution, I could find was to throw the tank out into my pond in the garden. Weeks became months and I didn`t see any of them again, so I expected they were dead.Then one evening in the late summer, I was sitting next to the pond enjoying a cigaret and a beer, when a huge swop sounded from the water. Hmmm what was that? While looking there suddently came a monster up to the surface and took some air........ I tried to catch it, but witout luck so the next day I emtied the pond and in the mud I found 2 larvae ( a pair ).

They were really big. 21 and 22 cm.
I placed them i a large tank, but they emidiatly started to reduce the gills and went on land in a few days.

Later I got the parent animals too, but they were much smaller than the 2.

A few days back I placed the adults in a tank outside. The males 1 day before the females and I tried with a seperate tank for the "homemade" pair. The next day the first eggs were deposited, and they are going on and on. I theink there are about 300 now and I really hope they are fertile.

Best wishes
Søe

 

[Soe]

I actually gave up hope on the eggs, because I didn`t see any development. Then 2 days ago I looked on the eggs at the 2 of my own breeding and within the soup of algaes, I saw this:

Best wishes

Søe

 

[JTinker92]

How big are they when they first hatch.

 

[Soe]

Hi
Mine left the eggs today and they are between 13 and 14 mm

 

[Soe]

Today the last larvae have left the eggs. Unfortunately only in 1 container, but a fast count passed 80, so there will be more than enough to feed on:happy:

 

[AmbystoMan]

What are the news more than 1 month later ?

 

[Soe]

Status from today:
About 80 -90 left in size from 4,5 to 10 cm. I have had serious problems getting enough food for them. I tried feeding with pellets and frozen mosquitolarvae, but the only result was, that they went into canibalism . I needed to seperate them in size on a daily basis, so now I have 5 tanks with larvae. Problems started at about 4 cm, but the large ones have now stopped eating each other.They are fed on earthworms and soldierfly larvae and gives no problems beside all the water changes.
I finally found a pond with live mosqutilarvae and daphnia yesterday, and for the first time in weeks they didn`t eat it all up before next morning.
I hope I will manege to get the rest past 8 cm, so they can be fed on worms in stead. That is far easier.

 

[AmbystoMan]

looks like all my mavortium larvae ;-)

 

[Soe]

Made a new setup....... I was fed up changing 1 m3 water a day, so I made a rack where the water flows from one to another and then back to a container filled with water plants to remove the waste material from the larvae.

I also gave up catching and digging food enouh for the "Lock Ness" monsters so I started on buying 5 kilo earthworms.................That will last a few weeks ( If I am lucky )

These buggers eats me out of the house and the grow like madness.

Lets see how big they grow. My goal is a larvae at 20 cm and hopefully 25 but I recon thats impossible