Running out of patience

Sianita

Sianita

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So I recently acquired 4 new additions (JFBN larvae). They have now all morphed about 2 months ago and I still am yet to see them eat. I have been trying everything to feed them. Micro crickets - they seemed to eat but never looked full up and the colonies always died pretty soon no matter what I did to feed and clean them out. Bloodworms thawed and tried to hand feed but they are far too shy to eat them. Chopped earthworms, chopped into 1cm pieces but only 1 or 2 out of the 4 seem to eat a bit each. Flightless fruit flies seem to be my best option but they don't last long either, they all seem to die off within 2 weeks and its difficult for me to buy them where I live.
 
Can you get white worms where you live? you can use those.They are easy to raise.
 
Sorry I meant to add on to my first post. I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to properly care for fruit flies and if there is any other way to try and get my babies tong feeding. I've read the other posts on here and people seem to find it relatively easy to hand feed them with a little patience but mine are just so shy and I'm worried they aren't eating enough.

I don't know any pets shops near me that sell white worms, although I seen xxianxx on here selling starter colonies and so I thought I could give them a go if I can keep them alive for long enough haha
I have asked my local pet shop to look into getting me fruit flies but theres no guarantees :(

oh the babies themselves are only about 3.5 cm in length (nose to tail) just incase anyone says white worms are too big or small for them. Any advice is appreciated Thanks for the quick reply otterwoman x
 
At that size, the newts will happily take white worm. White worms are easy to culture - just keep them in damp potting soil (e.g. and ice cream tub full) and feed them on bread, reddybrek or fish food and they will not only stay alive but reproduce to the point where you will have too many to deal with! Once you have a culture going, you can add whiteworms to terrestrial tanks, where they will breed and provide food for newts to graze on outside of feeding time.

Adult (i.e. non-maggot) fruitflies only live a short time. To keep a supply, you will need to breed them. Take flies from your original shop-bought culture and put them in plastic pint glasses with new medium and a piece of kitchen roll or muslin secured over the top with a rubber band. Keep them warmish (23-25C is ideal) and they will reproduce. The substrate will become full of maggots, which will pupate and hatch into a new batch of flies. Use some of these and use the rest to propagate new cultures. Occasionally cultures may crash due to mould or mites, but you can then start up again with a new shop-bought culture. Try to source your original culture from a good source to avoid it being teeming with mites.

You can buy 'just-add-water' medium online from various sources, but a cheaper alternative is to make your own. I use Alan Cann's recipe: Drosophila
with success.

When tong feeding, try to do it in the evening with reduced lighting to avoid scaring them. Try gently touching the food on the front of the mouth - this often elicits a feeding snap. If they are very shy, they may run away if you rub food directly on the mouth, so if this happens, try gently wiggling the food (just a mm or two side-to-side) on the ground in front of them.

An alternative to rearing them terrestrially is to force them back into the water. There are lots of older posts in this forum about rearing Cynops pyrrhogaster aquatically; here is one to get you started http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...423-raising-c-pyrrhogaster-fully-aquatic.html . Essentially, move the animals to shallow water stuffed with plants, so that the newts can easily rest with their heads above water, but never get completely out of the wet. After a few days of glass climbing (make sure you have a very secure lid and keep putting the newts back in the water if you find them on the glass), they will usually take to the water. Once in the water, they are much easier to feed and can be weaned onto frozen foods.

Good luck with them!

C
 
I've been feeding my babies chopped earthworms from tweezers or the end of a cocktail stick ever since they morphed. I know it can be frustrating to start with but try not to pester them if they refuse at first, if they turn their heads away from the food then leave it for a while. if they don't move or turn to face it they will probably take it sooner or later so don't give up too soon. To begin with it's important that the worm pieces are still wiggling but after a while they will take whatever is offered alive or dead! Some of mine will happily take to the water and will eat like pigs but most won't at the moment so i just keep offering them worms whenever i think about it, some are greedy and eat every day but some are still very shy and need tempting with the lights off. I find cocktail sticks easier than tweezers because they can be bent to different angles to offer the food under leaves or other places where the babies feel secure enough to feed. Stick at it, once they gain confidence it's a lot of fun to see them stalking and ambushing their 'pray' Hope this helps :happy:
 
Hi,
another good food for tiny and shy terrestrial juvies are pea aphids. They are quite easy to culture (just look around the net and you will find some articles) and quite slow in movement.

Greetz
Fabian
 
Thank you all very much! :) especially Chris thanks for going into so much detail. I had previously read that article and tried to bring them up aquatic but I was too scared to raise the water past an inch haha I didn't want any of them to drown. I have currently got them on damp paper towel wish toilet roll tubes for hides. I think I may change their setup and put lots of fake plants in, and hopefully they'll feel more secure.

Do you think I could try again even though they have been on paper towel for 2 months now?

I'm definitely going to try the white worms if I can get some from xxianxx and I'll try breeding the fruit flies too. I never knew it was that easy.

How would I know if they had mites though? My last batch I ordered from the net and the wee ones loved them but I didn't know to watch out for mites.

The aphids sound really good as well, I did try and find some in my garden but had no luck. I'll try and find somewhere online to buy them :)

Thanks again everyone x
 
Whiteworms are very easy to culture. Bury some damp oats in compost add the starter culture of worms (which will include springtails if you get them off me), leave them somewhere cool and keep quite damp but not soggy. If the culture gets too hot (over 22c or so) the worms will die back, also if it is too dry you get mites. I keep a 2ftx2ftx2ft worm bin in my garden for white worms, even in the winter they dont freeze , a large colony of whiteworm generates a lot of heat , or it may just be the oats fermenting idk, either way you can leave them outside. I also keep some in my shed as a reserve in small tubs. If you leave the oats in clump s all you have to do is dig them up and scrape the worms of the surface of the oats, if you feed them loads you will be amazed how fast the population will grow. I also like to culture them in terrestrial tubs where my newts are or even in floating tubs in aquatic setups.
 
The mites aren't harmful to the newts, they just reduce the productivity of fly cultures. If you look closely, you will see them as tiny 'dots' running around, particularly if you knock parts of an old culture out onto a tabletop. Most cultures end up with them, but some of the live-food commercial tubs I have bought were riddled with them.

If you try the aquatic approach again, an inch of water should be fine until they become stronger swimmers. I would recommend using live plants; ideally something fast growing such as established Elodea/Egeria and/or java moss. The live plants will help t mop up waste from the newts. If possible, start the tank with some water from an established aquarium to kick-start the nitrogen cycle.

C
 
Great! Thanks for the info. Sounds like I'll enjoy starting up a white worm culture :)

With regards to the live plants Chris, do u know anywhere or someone on here that sell good quality plants (that don't come with snails) I have had bother for years with live plants for my fish tank because the shop suppliers in my area are very poor.
 
I get all my new plants from ebay, i think some sellers claim their stock is free from snails but i like snails as they do a great job clearing up the dead leaves and keep the algae off the glass! I think you can treat the plants to kill snails before you put them in the tank but i've never done this, maybe someone else could tell you what the product is called?
 
I would be very wary of treating for snails, as I doubt that the effects on newts are not well understood. Many if not most of the chemicals that I have seen contain copper compounds as a killing agent, which is toxic to many amphibians. Particularly for a small transistional setup, I wouldn't worry about snails. I have them in all my adult tanks, too, but from a small tub you could easily remove any snails that turn up, first from the plants themselves and then any crawling around the tank.
I have got stuff from ebay with good results. An alternative is to advertise in the Wanted section here, as people very often have excess plants after trimming a tank. I would really advise live, though, as plastic plants do not use up waste, produce no oxygen and get covered in biofilms and sometimes need to be removed and cleaned.
 
I have loads of Hornwort and some water lettuce that i've pruned off the plants in my tanks, if you want to pay the postage i'll send some up to you? There might be some Elodea in there aswell. I can't guarantee there's no snails in with it but it really is best to use live plants, they make a massive difference to water quality and support all kinds of tiny creatures that the newts will snack on. Pm me if you want them. :happy:
 
Sorry yes it is defo time for an update!
I have just moved house a week ago so I don't have the internet in as of yet and god knows where my camera is lol
I decided to hold off introducing the efts to water until I had moved, and I am so glad I did. I can't express how delighted I was after 5minutes of adding them to there little tank filled with plants and just a little floating piece of cork bark. They have literally taken to the water like ducks! haha

Now just a week on I have noticed how much fatter they seem to appear although I have only offered chopped earthworms twice :) Sadly my whiteworm culture was a disaster thanks to the move, so I am going to feed earthworms and the odd bloodworms just for the time being.

I wish I could show you all how great they are doing! I am picking up a new tank from college today with a built in ledge and a large area for their water which I can't wait to get them in :)

Can anyone give me any advice on what I can feed them now they have taken to the water? I don't have the money right now to order any live foods online but I will happily get some ASAP. Does anyone feed frozen thawed daphnia, moina etc?

Thanks again to everyone for their advice and I hope to get pics up soon :)
 
Frozen daphnia and bloodworms etc is fine every so often if they'll eat it but i find chopped earthworms are the best food for packing weight on them and getting them growing. Once you get them to feed under water they seem to be able to swallow bigger items than on land and become very bold and greedy, it's as if a switch flips in their heads and they loose all the shyness in an instant! I can't wait to see pictures of them once you find the camera! :)
 
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