Eastern Newt Breeding

[Plethodonman]

I am looking for techniques to get E. newts to lay eggs in captivity. We are conducting a research project. Does anyone have suggestions?

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[slowfoot]

What's worked for me is a period of a lot of good food, followed by a sustained drop in temps (to around 40 F at night) for a few nights, then maintained at around 60F. Also, they seem to need a heavily planted aquarium (or one with a lot of laying sites) to be induced to lay.

Good luck!

 

[Greatwtehunter]

My method is almost identical to Erin's except mine are kept a tad colder for longer. My newts prefer elodea over any other plant I have tried. The thicker the vegetation the better.

 

[Plethodonman]

Thanks for the information.

Does anyone know if egg or larvae are available to be purchased?

 

[otolith]

Almost all of the Eastern Newts avaliable in the pet trade are wild caught so I doubt you would be able to find eggs or larvae for sale unless someone was selling them on this site.

The period of cooling triggered my group of notos to breed this season as well, my water temp never went below 50 F, and as soon as it went up to about 60 F they started laying.

 

[deliriah]

Mine bred somewhat accidentally... well sort of.

 

[DeCypher]

As Erin said, I put a lot of good food and a new devil's ivy plant in the tank, and they got right to laying.

 

[Hunter9]

If you want your eastern newts to mate and lay eggs I have found that deeper water and a large land area are a must have to encourage breeding. I have 11 of them in a US 55 gallon with about 8 inches of water and about 1/4 of their tank is a land area. I have found my largest male mateing with 2 females this season. My tank is normally around 65 F in the day and probably around 55-50 F at night (I leave my window open to accomplish this). Oh! And a difference in the amount of light helps also, around 10-12 hours of light in summer and 6-8 hour of light in winter. So if you want to breed eastern newts have deeper water with tons of plants; a sufficient land area, cool them down and turn off those lights earlier; and to really get them going feed (and clean!) more often. As soon as the temp raises a tad they should start to mate and hopefully you should get some babies as reproductive success is normally low with this species. This is how I got mine to breed hopefully it will help some of you and its a lot less work than it sounds lol!

 

[nursemelody]

Can this be done at whatever month, or only late winter early spring? What are the best months you think?

 

[RADDC]

My newts breed every year. The temperature changes from 68 - 75 throughout the year, that's it. Adult eastern newts do not need land. Mine have very little and never go there, they remain entirely aquatic. The depth of the tank is around 10" with gravel on the bottom. Elodea does work well, but my newts tend to prefer South American Bacopa. The leaves are larger and they tend to like them better. I put 4, 10-12" strands of it in the tank at a time and remove/replace them after one week. I put the egg laden bacopa in a ten gallon tank filled 1/2 way with Filtered fresh water. after 6-10 days the eggs hatch and net out the larvae and put them into individual cups of filtered fresh water with a sprig of pathos (good filtration) and go from there.

The key, in my opinion, to breeding these guys is to have many adults. 2-3 adults will yield very little reproduction, if at all. I have 8 in a 40 gallon well established setup and I could easily breed a couple hundred of these guys. This year I only put two sets of bacopa in there and came away with 56 growing, thriving larvae.

Send me an PM with your research abstract and maybe we can work something out to get you some free larvae.

 

[morg]

I agree with the last post about notops prefering bacopa to elodea for egg laying.
I have masses of elodea in my notop tank, but the only plants being used as egg laying sites are bacopa and creeping jenny[ Lysimach nummularia]

 

[crevalle]

I bred mine by feeding them a ton--no temperature manipulation at all. I was unable/unprepared to raise the hatchlings however.

 

[psychotic]

Maybe my newts are just weird them. Mine are about 50% aquatic. They tend to sleep on the land area I provided. They also eat up there too. I had 2 females and 1 male when my newts began to breed. I have their tank close to my floor so that the natural temp changes for the seasons reflect in my tank (wood floors). Both females became gravid. However only one laid her eggs. I have bacopa, anachris and java moss in my tank. I also added plastic strips. My female chose the plastic strips.

My larva died due to heat wave and power outage for two weeks.