Currently, they are feeding on my "secret recipe high carotenoid" wingless fruit flies, white worms, tiny crickets, and a good number of them are training on eating small bits of my homemade caudate pellets.
Some are just slower...doesn´t necessarily mean they are weaker though, in fact the longer it takes to morph the better(as long as there´s growth). Just be patient.
Also, i´m sorry to burst your bubble but it wouldn´t be the first neotenic popei xDD
The final larvae morphed this past Saturday....finally...
Sadly, I had my first loss. Not sure of the cause, but some sort of infection of the tail. No visible fungus or damage, but the tail was "melting" off at an alarming rate starting from the tip. Given the small size of the animal and the rapid spread of the infection, I opted for euthanasia. I will note that this one was eating well and behaving normally, however I felt it would be a losing battle to attempt to treat this injury.
However, on a good note, the remaining 38 (I finally got an accurate count! My estimates were close!) are doing very well so far and are eating me out of house and home. I am currently going through 500 1/8th inch crickets, hundreds of springtails, and hundreds of fruit flies every two weeks. I have opted to add white worms to the mix. Tong feeding training has started with thawed bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and chopped earthworm. Had to back off on the homemade pellets...they were having trouble eating the smallest bits, so I will wait a month or so to try again.
Lighting is continuing at 12 on/12 off and I am keeping humidity at 40% @ temperature of 68F average. Segregation based on size is also continuing.
Pictures to follow in a few days...I somehow have managed to fill a 4GB SD card up over the last few weeks, I have a lot of sorting to do...
I am culturing the springtails from local wild caught stock (turns out they love old, wet cardboard- another perk of working in a box factory). These little guys quickly overwhelmed my other cultures so fruit flys are from Petco to balance out my own cultures, crickets are from Gahnn's Cricket Farm. The white worms are doing Ok for now, but I had forgotten I had them so I need to make some daughter cultures soon...
I may be overfeeding a bit, however, I figure they are still growing, keep them stuffed, just like when they were aquatic.
Wow sounds good. I don't remember having much success with FF's with mine(though I sure crickets are relished). Blackworms on tweezers or put on java moss works well also.
Thanks for the update! I'd say let them warm a tad. They'll do fine at 68F, but may eat more if you get them into the lower 70s. Then again, you did say "average", so maybe they are warmer during the daytime, which is fine. I've never seen any with tail rot. Is the substrate possibly too wet? Mine eat fruit flies like champs, but they seem to grow faster on pinheads.
I suspected too wet substrate could be an issue also...turns out a certain teenager was being helpful while I was at work...and misted the newts along with the tree frogs by mistake...so I replaced all the substrate in all their tanks.
Fruit flies worked well when they first started eating after climbing on land, but they quickly outgrew the size of flies I have available. I admit I am hoping to get them to grow quite a bit before winter, it is impossible to get the smaller cricket sizes in shops and the temps here put mail order out of the question.
My popei are 7-8 months old and they still are fine with mela and hydie FF. I also offer chopped black worms, and various springtails. I am working with them to get them to take chopped earthworm. Not going so good on that front yet. I need to integrate frozen bloodworm soon....
Had a loss this week. Came home from work to find the end cap had fallen off the Air conditioning duct in the basement...it was 54 F down there. Humidity plummeted. Nine of the smallest morphs did not survive.
I now have three fully aquatic juveniles! There is about a dozen more that will likely follow soon!
Pictures to follow after my usual delay...
I introduced a water dish about a week ago to the enclosure of the largest, now very near three inches long! By the end of the week, the three largest had entered the dish and refused to leave. I actually though one had drowned at first, then I saw it grab a stray Drosophila hydei from the surface. I moved these three to their own enclosure with about one inch of water and a cork island, just in case they changed their minds. They have began to feed on thawed out frozen foods while submerged, however they still climb up on their island to take fruit flies and crickets.
Great job! I have not had luck getting my morphs to return to water. They are 9 months old. Though I do find dirt in the water dish so I think they are being sneaky. In fact I found one lounging in the water till the cover came off then he flew off....argh...They can take their time I guess since terrestrial phase is easy for me to handle. I am about 4 tanks behind in setting up for all my guys.....So they can go slow....
Eventually, I will. I have been absolutely swamped with work and family lately. Sadly, my hobbies/business/fun stuff had had to take a back burner for the time being.
The guys I thought were completely aquatic are still toying with the idea a bit, so I moved them to a divider type enclosure to ease their decision making process. The little ones really liked their small water dish, but they were not too keen on an entire tank with some cork bark/ java moss islands. This hybrid tank gives them a less stressful choice.
But enough about a cheap divider set up- here they are, the largest Cynops ensicauda popei in my collection, playing around with aquatic lifestyles:
These guys are still landlubbers (sorry about the Navy talk...) but they do go for a dip often, especially to feed. They all still like to hunt crickets and fruit flies on land though.
And here is my favorite shot so far. Please caption this as "Dude, how is the water?"
(The moss looks a bit too wet as I had just misted it for the day prior to taking pictures. Its that Hollywood thing- wet stuff looks better!)
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