Marms and Egg strips

[garrison]

I recently switched from plants to egg strips in the tank where my T. Marmoratus female is egg laying.

I decided to conduct a little experiment in egg laying preference. One bundle of egg strips I put in there was made from white trash bag and the other was made of clear plastic I cut from ziplock snack bags. Both strip width length and width per bundle were the same. The difference in laying rates between the two was HUGE. She layed three eggs on the white one before she discovered the clear one and has layed about 100 or so in the last 5 days. She doesn't stop. Since finding the clear strips she has completely left white strips and Elodea remaining alone. She was laying on Elodea before I put in the strips but at much, much lower rates.

Conclusion: my female T. marmoratus prefers clear plastic egg laying strips to white or Elodea for egg deposition.

Has anyone had similar results? Suggestions?

 

[kyle]

Thats a very very interesting observation, makes me wonder why, and if other people would have similar or different results. My only thought would be that it is somehow based on thickness texture of the laying surface, unless newts are more inquisitive about style than we think!

If you'd like to see if this preference for clear plastic vs. white plastic is genetic you can always send a few of the larval marms my way ;-) see what the offspring prefer once they are old enough. Best of luck on raising the little guys.

 

[hayden]

Garrison,
I think I'll try this with my Karelinii this year. I've always just used the white ones before and It'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[adam]

I used clear strips last time in all of my aquaria for the first time, aswell as dark strips and can confirm the same results. karelinii and carnifex especially.

 

[jennifer]

Funny thing, these preferences. I wonder if its a color preference, or a tactile preference. My alpestris apuanus refuse the clear strips almost completely. They also leave Elodea untouched. But any little clump of Java moss gets packed with eggs. I need to try them with yarn and see if they like that better.

 

[morg]

For some reason Ive never had any luck using plastic strips in any of my tanks.
At present I have T marmoratus, and T carnifex laying eggs, however both species will only lay on the broad leaved java fern or particularly Anubias.
Seeing as I do not want to pull any of these plants apart I am having to leave the eggs in the parents tank.
Both set ups also have Elodea, and plastic strips, but as yet neither have been used for egg laying.

 

[alan]

My experience is that females get fixated on a particular substrate. To get them to change to a new one you sometimes have to remove all the preferred substrate and give them no choice but to use the new one, e.g. plastic strips.
After a while, you can sometimes add the plants back in.