Fire Belly Newt Growth Rate?

[Jbradybvb]

My oldest baby newts were born two years ago around Christmas and I only have two left from the original batch. A couple months ago they finally went into a fully aquatic tank (before they would mostly stay on land). My question is how big should they be right now? They are only an inch to an inch and a half long and i feel like they should be a lot bigger than that. Are there any foods i can try feeding them that might make them grow faster?

Also, is there any way to train them not to be hand fed? I've been feeding them frozen bloodworms with tweezers and they are stuck on tweezers = food. They usually will not eat unless they see the tweezers in front of them.

Thank you

 

[Chinadog]

It's not really possible to say what size they should be at any given age because it depends on so many other factors like temperature, food availability, food quality, photo period, weather they are aquatic or terrestrial, etc, etc. In my experience you can get juvenile Cynops to grow very quickly once they've become aquatic again by feeding a high quality diet and keeping the Nitrate level in the water as low as possible. I feed mine Earthworms, but pellets should work just as well, in fact their colour would probably be brighter with the pellets. Although bloodworms are often the easiest thing to get young, terrestrial newts started on and are a reasonable staple when sprinkled with high quality vitamin/mineral supplement, you should be trying to wean them on to something substantial now they're aquatic. Try giving them chopped nightcrawlers with the tweezers to begin with, then, once they recognise the smell, try leaving them on the bottom for them to find themselves. If you make sure they are very hungry while getting them started on the worms, they'll probably be in more of a mood to try something new.
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