Question: Need baby firebelly help

[Kribby]

My roommate and I are fairly new to keeping newts and we have been keeping 7 Chinese firebelly newts for the last year and a bit. About two months ago we noticed some eggs and decided to try raising the fry.

After a bit of reading we set up a 10 gallon tank with a lot of ricca and water sprite, added an air stone, bought some brine shrimp eggs and waited.

For the last 43 days we have been the proud parents of about 80 newtlets. They seem to be doing well, they eat the baby brine shrimp, are active, and we have has no deaths. I am wondering though, how big should they be at this stage? They still seem to be really small. How large will they be when they go into the eft stage?

You can really see how much more developed some are compared to others.

 

[Jennewt]

Congratulations on your newt-parenthood! It's hard to judge size, but they look thin. I think it's time to switch them to a larger type of food. I'd recommend live blackworms if you can get them. If you need to stay with BBS for a while longer, you might want to give them 2 feedings per day. It's important to get the larvae as large as possible before they morph, as larger morphs have a better chance of survival, grow faster, and are generally less troublesome.

Raising 80 is a serious undertaking, and not really what I'd recommend. By the time they are a bit bigger, the group will need something larger than a 10-gallon tank.

 

[bichogrilo]

I agree they do look a bit thin.When mine reach that size i start feeding them live mosquitos and daphnia, lots of daphnia. Daphnia also helps make their bellies nice and red.