C.e.popei social mixer....

[paris]

so here's the skinny....i have 2 sets of popei. one is a set 2 females with one male from unknown origin(off the pet trade)-age unknown, the other set is a captive bred bunch from 1 breeder (henry)-(there are 3 females and 1 male).they are about 2+ years old.

the captive bred bunch are from the same breeding season-yet i dont know how many parents they all had. the thing about the CB's is that i was told they were from the ryukyu islands...and i thought that was significant since i knew their origin-so i decided to keep them separate. but now i have read that all popei's come from those islands,-is this true?- so should i just throw them all together in one big tank now? i dont have any data on exactly which island they came from, but to me location is an important factor in breeding colonys. but since they come from a small gene pool it would be benificial if all else is equal to mix them. also im not sure if two males competing for the availble females add to breeding success or hinder it.

on a side note/question, after reading sparboom's article-i was wondering if taking them out of H2O and keeping them on land for a while -then re submitting them to an aquatic lifestyle would help to trigger breeding-any ideas?

 

[ralf]

Hi Paris,
I'd probably mix the two groups, if they are both C.e.popei (after a certain period of quarantine), since C.e.popei is a genetically distinct group within C. ensicauda. Both subspecies (C.e.ensicauda and C.e.popei) occur on the Ryukyu-archipelago, though. C.e.ensicauda on the Amami-islands as well as Kakeroma and Tokuno, whereas C.e. popei lives on Okinawa and the island of Kin.
Several males will always compete for a female (SPARREBOOM also published on this subject), but the female will pick it's "spouse" eventually. I keep several groups of C.e.popei with up to ten animals per group) and they breed almost every spring and fall (I keep them aquatic in a densely planted tank the whole year round). Variation of temperature levels between approx. 14 and 22 degrees Celsius and different lighting intervals (window, no direct sunlight) seems to be sufficient as trigger for my animals.
Hope this answers at least some of your questions.

Ralf