FBN baby questions

[vistajpdf]

Hi everyone,

My son's two FBN have had a baby - a little over a week old. As I learn more from this site, I now see about 10 eggs or so. I've moved the baby and the eggs (on plants) to a separate tank. The pet stores here seem to know very little about these amazing animals and actually, couldn't keep them alive and have discontinued selling them, thankfully.

Anyway, I've read the info here and links on raising larva, etc, but I still have a few questions. I was sold frozen baby brine shrimp from the pet store. I then went to an exotic store in search of Daphnia, and was sold a frozen "similar" product. "Newty" does appear to be eating and we're doing partial water changes on a daily basis but I see a lot of food in the bottom. Tomorrow I will do a complete change. I'm a little concerned about the water since we got a new, small fish tank three mos. ago for one of my sons and the water has yet to be acceptable. The other two tanks are fine, but this one has been a problem. I was told to buy reverse osmosis water from the supermarket, but thought I read something here about not using it for newts. What things am I looking for in the water upon testing? Similar to fish tank guidelines?

After reading about how these little guys are fragile, I'm also searching for live Daphnia. I can't find it locally and really don't know where else to look. I found a few sites online - some seem to be culture starters and others give two species names for the Daphnia. Does it matter? What else should I do to help the survival of the baby? Will a total water change mess up the eggs? Do I need to remove them carefully before dumping the tank? It's about a 2 gallon tank.

Thanks for any help,
Dana

 

[Hardwarehank]

Not sure if you've had a chance to look this over yet http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtml but it should get you going in the right direction to start out with until someone with more experience comes around . I just recently started keeping Cynops orientalis again for about a month and recently woke up to a nice surprise of eggs attached to plants in my tank and so far the article has been working out nice.

 

[vincent]

Yes baby newts like live little things to get them feeding try breeding brine shrimps,you can buy eggs in a liquid suspension from good pet shops, then follow the instructions on the bottle .They really need small things try breeding infursia by putting a crushed lettuce leaf in a jar of boiling water in the window for light . Two days later the water goes cloudy then pour a small amount in for youre babies. Food needs to increase in size as they get bigger. If you cant get live daphnia try putting a small amount of frozen in a dish to defrost place an air stone in the water bubbling gently then pour the defrosted daphnia onto air stone the movement gets them feeding.With this method I get lavae to eat finley crushed cat fish sinker pellets :smile: I hope this helps you out:crazy:

 

[vistajpdf]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the advice. I have since found live Daphnia - should be here by Wednesday, so "Newty" ought to be happy. He has been eating the frozen foods, but I'm sure he'll like the live stuff better as will any siblings who hatch. We're so attached to this little guy so we want to give him the best chance at survival (the pet store wasn't optimistic...) I had seen the article Hardware Hank recommended and it was a help, but, as always, more knowledge leads to more questions.

Dana:happy: