Pleurodeles Waltl Eggs

[TJ]

Just kidding about feeding them to the Oscar. I'd never do that, even if it were safe...well, at least not deliberately! I once fed a P. waltl larve to him that I thought had mysteriously died, but just before the Oscar grabbed it, it moved!

It was too late by then to perform a rescue...

He's fed mostly Tetra pellets and freeze-dried shrimp. It might be just my imagination, but he seems to be hungrily eyeing all the newts from behind the glass

I have frozen daphnia in the fridge, but haven't used it with my larvae after reading something somewhere once about how it could cause problems...shells too hard or something like that...though not sure if that's really the case. have you tried this?

i also have frozen adult brine shrimp in the freezer but it tends to foul the water if the cubes are just plopped in. Think I'll try it again tonight with my newts, this time after rinsing it well beforehand in a net...

My Cynops larvae are now eating frozen bloodworm (will post a pic later maybe), but the Iberians are still too small to handle anything that big.

I usually start all my babies out on newly hatched baby brine, then introduce small live tubifex, then larger live tubifex and finally frozen bloodworm. Years ago I used to be able to get live bloodworm here, but no longer...

Will check my Iberians this evening to see if they have also developed those legs. Sure they're not the so-called "balancers" that some newt larvae develop? I dunno if P.waltl larvae get them...

 

[rob]

Mine have started eating blackworms. I have to dice them up, but they eat them like crazy. They balloon up so big....they look so fat. They've grown a lot over the past two days....and have darkened a fair bit. It is legs that I saw, no balancers. I have one that is a different colour then the rest as well...very pale looking. I have seperated it, but I think it's just a runt of the litter and hasn't gotten that far along yet. Either way he's seperate to make sure he gets extra attention until he morphs.

I sent you and email too Tim....hope that's ok.

Rob

 

[paris]

i used to chop up blackworms, but now i have come to the conclusion its a wasted effort. those that are maimed past the point of repair will die and possibly foul the water (depending on biomass/water ratio)what i have found is just to let them loose in the bottom of the tank-they clump together in small balls if there is no substrate-and spread out if there is gravel-either way there are lots of little pointy wormy ends wiggling all about to get nipped off. it seems that larva just bite off what they can eat and leave the rest..for me this works better. if the tank is bare bottom and has lots of plants -every so many days i go in and stirr up the water and worms-so they are equally dispersed and dangling off of plants and all-this gives the larva better access. i have heard reports of larva supposibly being choked by eating too many blackworms all at once-having been seen dead with lots of blackworms dangling from their mouths. i wonder though if that is just an after effect of being dead-blackworms go right for dead bodies and dead eggs.(i am considering using them to clean delicate specimens)

also for those that are wondering about worm cups-ive tried them they are pretty much useless unless you want to separate live worms from dead. the whole point of worm cups is supposibly to allow a ball of worms to be easily accessed in small amounts. the problem is blackworms are always on the move and like to move downward and in groups. so soon after you put them in the cup-they start to poke out and then seem to form a collective -intertwineing about each other eventually forming a large 'drop'-a ball of worms located on the bottom of the cup that drops to the bottom and becomes the big ball of worms that you were trying to aviod. the only positive side to these contraptions is the separation of the living from the dead.


for larger more interesting prey though-has anyone ever bred scuds-i think thats what they are(a fresh water shrimp bigger than brine but still very small)? my newts love them and id like to know how to get them in large amounts. ive gotten them from ponds where they live in pondscum clumps-but its such a pain to separate them and id like to avoid the possible parasite issue.

 

[rob]

Hmmm...interesting idea. I will have to try that. Thanks for the tip.

 

[rob]

Wahoo! They're eating frozen brine shrimp now. SO much easier, but more cleaning! Worthy trade off!

Rob

 

[TJ]

heya Breeder Rob! How many do you have left? I'm down to 150+- -- not enough to populate the world but more than enough to populate my living room.

Have you noticed any cannibalism among the larvae (as seen with axolotls)? I haven't but I'm wondering, because I started with more than double that number but haven't removed 150 tiny bodies over the past couple of weeks, maybe only 30-40 or so. And the filter has a sponge.

It seems yours have grown at a faster rate than mine despite hatching around the same time -- perhaps because you've culled the flock? Frozen brine shrimp? What size shrimp? Mine are still on fresh-hatched brine, and tubifex is still too big for them. I found one very big one the other day but am pretty sure it's a C.e larvae stowaway!

 

[rob]

Hey Tim!

Sorry I haven't responded to your email yet...I've been fairly busy the past week or so.

As for cannibalism I would have to say I did not notice any of it. Mine are very large right now, and I think it was because I fed them live blackworms. They grew like crazy after feeding them those for a couple days.

As for the brine shrimp it's frozen full grown brine shrimp now. Today is going to be bloodworms to see how they like those.

I have about 30-40 left, a good number I think considering my aim. I'm at a point where all the ones I have left are large, eating well, and looking very healthy. All the runts, spinners, and such were either culled off or died of natural causes and were removed. The ones left are HUGE. They about....hmm....4-5cm in length, and probably about as thick around as a pencil is at their head (slimming off towards the tail of course). Their front legs are getting fairly large now too and are taking on the grey colour that their body has instead of the transparent colour they were the other day.

Hope yours are doing great!

Rob

 

[rob]

Tried the bloodworms...they smell food cause they're all searching for it, but the completly ignore the food itself...like they don't recognize the actual bloodworms as food. Brine shrimp is what it's going to be a for a while then!

 

[rob]

Eating brine shrimp like crazy, and now they have backlegs! They're growing fast.

 

[rob]

Well, they're eating anything I give them now...and this morning when checking the parents tank there was another batch of eggs...more then the first two batches. That's three batches of eggs over the past two months!!! Will they ever stop?

 

[steve]

wow! rob , you need to buy a couple 120G tanks now.

 

[rob]

First one has morphed and is looking great.