Larvae not eating

K

karen

Guest
I have 20 spotted salamander larvae now. None have died yet but the 2 oldest ones are 5 days old now and I have yet to see anyone eat. I've tried blackworms, chopped and whole small ones. I check back a few hours later - and the worms are still alive and uneaten.
I've also been feeding brine shrimp. The shrimp have been consistently hatching in 24 hours, even at room temperature, so I've been feeding them freshly hatched shrimp every evening - but I have never seen them eat any. They just lie on the bottom and don't move unless something frightens them. Is there anything I can do to coax them into eating?
 
Are you sure they're salamander larvae and not frog larvae? Most of the time, they do sit and do nothing. You might want to try daphnia, as these are aquatic and won't foul the water like brine shrimp.
 
I'm fairly sure they are salamander larvae. They have external gills and look just like pictures I've seen of spotted salamander larvae.
I don't have access to Daphnia. I am ordering some microworms which are supposed to survive in the water for awhile.
 
Well frog larvae also start out with external gills but the become covered up after a while. At this stage it's normal for them not to eat anything, and if you were hoping sals and their larvae were hyperactive creatures bouncing off the walls you'll be dissapointed. Both adult sals and babies are very lazy. They don't really do much except eat, surface, and slowly wander their tanks as adults, and as babies don't do much more than lye around.
 
OK, I think these guys are salamanders but am not sure now. I collected the eggs thinking they were frog eggs and then when I researched them some more I thought they were salamanders. Soon after that they all began hatching and they had the external gills so I just assumed salamander.
The eggs were large with a thick jelly coat, sank in water, and had brownish-green algae on them. Most frogs lay floating eggs with thinner jelly coats, right?
 
i am thinking after 5 days they are probably sals if they still have external gills-but to the point, frog taddies will also eat live stuff and 'gunge' ...so either way ...whats most important is IF they are eating. now you may not see them eat but they should be large enough that you can see their bellies-do they still have yolk reserves? is the belly region full (its transparent so easy to see at this stage) or can you see gas bubbles, bloat or just empty bellies? one thing to note is that even if they cant fit a whole worm piece in their mouth they will try-so some worm chunks will have repeated dents in them from being munched on-even though they werent eaten-this will show signs at least of feeding response.
 
All the larvae are still alive. I've been picking out the smallest blackworms and putting them in whole - 7 or 8 hours later, the worms are still alive, so the larvae probably arn't taking bites out of them. I've watched them and when one of the worms bumps into a larva the larva darts off frightened.
I've never seen them eat the shrimp either, and it seems like I am siphoning off a lot of dead shrimp... they don't seem to be getting eaten.
As far as I can tell, the bellies of the larva that I've been able to look at seem dark. They are skittish little guys though, so I havn't checked all of them.
I suppose they must be eating SOMETHING since they're still alive.
 
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