Marmoratus Breeding Project

[shnabo]

I am preparing to breed my marmoratus, and have moved them from their terrestrial setup to a more aquatic setup. They have all been going in and out of the water, the males doing so more regularly from my observations. They are currently being housed in my basement with the window slightly ajar, so they have been cooling for the last two weeks or so, with quite a bit left to go. Will post pictures with updates/as I remove the land portions of their setup over time.

 

[la salamandra]

Do you have some pictures about your terrestrial and terrestrial/acquatic set up?
I'm interested on this species and i could be inspired from your "breeding project " :happy: .

 

[shnabo]

Here are some photo updates sorry for the delay. I have a male and two females in here. I had slowly been increasing the water level as I noticed their skin change. They dug a cave in to the sand when the water rose which was cool. They are all fairly aquatic now. One female entered the water a few months earlier so she is bigger.

 

[shnabo]

I had seen some tail fanning and courtship attempts when the weather had warmed for a few days, now that it has cooled back down though the male has stopped pursuing the females, is that normal? Good to know he is interested nevertheless, I acquired him through trade (started with 3 females originally).

 

[shnabo]

Moar pics. One of the females is looking pretty ripe.

 

[troutnerd]

Did you have success?

 

[shnabo]

I think the female just needs to uptake a spermatore successfully. Depending on the temperature there is either a lot of courtship behaviour or none at all, hopefully soon the female will take interest, the males are starting to look beautiful. I will post pics of them once they're in full dress

 

[shnabo]

So the female marms crest 100% of the time? And do they usually lay after they crest or is that irrelevant? I don't think my females are creating (yet at least) but look like they may be gravid.

There are some pictures of my females and my male who seems to have resumed cresting. Auto correct always changes cresting to creating, which I guess is also true

 

[Chinadog]

What do you mean by females cresting, you mean their tails getting wider?

 

[shnabo]

The females crest also just not as much as the males. Their tails have gotten quite a bit wider as well though

 

[yankeedoodle]

Looks good! How long does it take the males to crest fully?

 

[shnabo]

I think the female is cresting now, there is a really slight protrusion but not much. Just not sure If she would only lay after cresting, that seems to be a bit of a ways away. And similar for the male, does he need to be fully crested before she'll take his..seed?

 

[shnabo]

Bae looks to be ripening, hopefully she is filling up with eggs. Still waiting for the male to achieve full mast

 

[shnabo]

A few more pics. She looks rotund but has been eating a lot so I'm not sure if she is just overly rotund

 

[troutnerd]

She looks ready to burst. They are gorgeous animals. great pics.

 

[shnabo]

Thanks! I thought I had seen an egg but there was only 1 so I'm not 100% sure. Hoping there will be more to come in the upcoming days to confirm.

 

[yankeedoodle]

an increase in lighting and temperature can help based on what I have seen online for breeding other Triturus species.

 

[shnabo]

Still waiting on eggs. Added a few plants just in case there weren't any that met her needs, but as you can see there's lots to choose from. Hoping she is in the mood!

 

[shnabo]

My female is big but has not laid yet. She ha been eating lots so it is likely from the food. I traded a female for a male earlier this year, and that female laid for its new owner who was kind enough to give me some eggs (we had made a deal that if one of us got eggs and the other didn't we would split them up). I also transferred the adults to a new aquatic tank, that I have been adding land to as 'spring' progresses. I have about 10 of the larvae, and would guess the oldest to be about 1-1.5 months old. Some of the other threads have their marks morphing at this time but mine don't seem to be close. I think t may be too late for my other female to pop but these will keep me busy in the meantime/ hopefully a few will make it so I can grow my colony of 4.

 

[Chinadog]

I'm sure you'll swell your colony from the ten larvae you have, just be sure to separate the bigger ones. Triturus larvae soon resort to ripping each others bits off if they get a size advantage.