Successful breeding of Ambystoma opacum.

[ntny]

Hello folks
how often do you feed your A.opacum?
i notice if i feed them twice per week they easily become obese easily.
my fire salamanders does not get obese like A.opcaum even when i feed more per week
now i feed them only once per week. it is ok?
i feed them chopped earthworms and gut loaded freshly molted meal worms
thanks

 

[frank beard]

I thought I would share this years "success" with breeding opacum. I say "success" because so far I have lots of eggs but it's a long way to go before having metamorphs although I full expect to have success at the level as well.

I maintain six opacum (3.3) in a planted 20 gal long terrarium. I feed them mainly earthworms and crickets but do occasionally offer slugs, waxworms and other items. About two or three weeks ago I first noticed that all of the males each had hugely swollen cloaca (the females had been obviously "fat" for awhile). Interestingly another tank with "juveniles" from a previous breeding had all of the males in the same condition though the same sized females were not swollen.

While doing weekly water changes, I was re-filling an axolotl tank adjacent the opacum 20 gal. It was raining outside and I heard a brief downpour which reminded me of the breeding ready condition of the opacum. I sprayed some water in the aquarium for a few seconds and then continued my cleaning activities. That night when I went down in the basement with my headlamp (something I do nearly every day to observe my salamanders) every single opacum was out which was not typical. I noticed two pairs where a male and female were together and it looked like the female might be following the male.

On Sept 30 I set up an egg deposition tub which is a large green Sterilite tote from the 1990's with two screen covered slots (25 years ago I used this as a cricket breeding bin). I went to a dried up vernal pool nearby and dug up a five gallon buckets worth of soil (this was bone dry even at six inches depth) and placed the soil in the tote. I arranged it so there was a very clear depression in the center of the tote and then added some leaves and a few chunks of decaying logs placed in the depression. The remnants of Hurricane Ian started to come in that afternoon so I pulled the tote out into the driveway to allow the rain to moisten the soil. I checked it occasionally and when it looked "right" I pulled the tote into my garage. I added seven opacum (the 3.3 adults and 1 "juvenile" male) and put the lid on. That night when taking the dogs out I opened the lid and peaked in and saw all of the salamanders actively wandering around. The next day I couldn't see any of the salamanders and that continued over the next several days. I started to worry that maybe the lid wasn't seated correctly at one point and they all escaped so I decided to ascertain whether they were still in the container.

On Oct 5, I carefully moved the leaves and logs and poked around in the soil of the depression and did not see a single salamander. On one side of the tote there was a large flat piece of soil which had held together (probably some roots in it) that I had thought was sitting "tightly" in the soil and that there was no way the salamanders could get under it. I was wrong though and I rolled it back and saw all of the salamanders along with hundreds of eggs. I plan to let the females stay with the eggs and give the larvae a chance to grow until around Thanksgiving when I will remove the eggs and inundate them. I removed all of the males aside from one which was touching a female (I didn't want to disturb the females any more than I had by lifting the soil).

The salamanders are maintained year round in the planted 20 gal long in my basement. The basement has two small windows that allow outside light and I have led lights on all of the enclosures that come on every day from 9:30 AM and stay on until 3:30 PM. The light cycle therefore closely matches the natural light cycle since the transition between night and day is handled by the natural ambient light from the windows. The basement is unheated/uncooled. There are temperature changes across the year but the yearly average is almost cetainly around 70. I do spot checks of temperatures with a little gun thermometer semi-regularly and see temps in some enclosures in the high 70's in the heat of the summer and in the 50's in the winter. This year I have been using HOBO data loggers to record the temperatures every hour in various enclosures in different areas but I have not yet downloaded the data from the loggers. When I do I will update this post with a graph.

Note the opacum were never rained on and were never outside. I don't know if the breeding predated the egg deposition by several days and took place in the 20 gal or if the breeding occurred in the tote. I don't know which parts of my maintenance were the important parameters to trigger the reproductive condition or the egg deposition. I will say that some "juvenile" male maculatum that I raised from field collected larvae are currently exhibiiting swollen cloacae so it seems likely that the light or temperature cycling (or the combination) are probably important for both of these species.

 

[Creekratt]

I thought I would share this years "success" with breeding opacum. I say "success" because so far I have lots of eggs but it's a long way to go before having metamorphs although I full expect to have success at the level as well.

I maintain six opacum (3.3) in a planted 20 gal long terrarium. I feed them mainly earthworms and crickets but do occasionally offer slugs, waxworms and other items. About two or three weeks ago I first noticed that all of the males each had hugely swollen cloaca (the females had been obviously "fat" for awhile). Interestingly another tank with "juveniles" from a previous breeding had all of the males in the same condition though the same sized females were not swollen.

While doing weekly water changes, I was re-filling an axolotl tank adjacent the opacum 20 gal. It was raining outside and I heard a brief downpour which reminded me of the breeding ready condition of the opacum. I sprayed some water in the aquarium for a few seconds and then continued my cleaning activities. That night when I went down in the basement with my headlamp (something I do nearly every day to observe my salamanders) every single opacum was out which was not typical. I noticed two pairs where a male and female were together and it looked like the female might be following the male.

On Sept 30 I set up an egg deposition tub which is a large green Sterilite tote from the 1990's with two screen covered slots (25 years ago I used this as a cricket breeding bin). I went to a dried up vernal pool nearby and dug up a five gallon buckets worth of soil (this was bone dry even at six inches depth) and placed the soil in the tote. I arranged it so there was a very clear depression in the center of the tote and then added some leaves and a few chunks of decaying logs placed in the depression. The remnants of Hurricane Ian started to come in that afternoon so I pulled the tote out into the driveway to allow the rain to moisten the soil. I checked it occasionally and when it looked "right" I pulled the tote into my garage. I added seven opacum (the 3.3 adults and 1 "juvenile" male) and put the lid on. That night when taking the dogs out I opened the lid and peaked in and saw all of the salamanders actively wandering around. The next day I couldn't see any of the salamanders and that continued over the next several days. I started to worry that maybe the lid wasn't seated correctly at one point and they all escaped so I decided to ascertain whether they were still in the container.

On Oct 5, I carefully moved the leaves and logs and poked around in the soil of the depression and did not see a single salamander. On one side of the tote there was a large flat piece of soil which had held together (probably some roots in it) that I had thought was sitting "tightly" in the soil and that there was no way the salamanders could get under it. I was wrong though and I rolled it back and saw all of the salamanders along with hundreds of eggs. I plan to let the females stay with the eggs and give the larvae a chance to grow until around Thanksgiving when I will remove the eggs and inundate them. I removed all of the males aside from one which was touching a female (I didn't want to disturb the females any more than I had by lifting the soil).

The salamanders are maintained year round in the planted 20 gal long in my basement. The basement has two small windows that allow outside light and I have led lights on all of the enclosures that come on every day from 9:30 AM and stay on until 3:30 PM. The light cycle therefore closely matches the natural light cycle since the transition between night and day is handled by the natural ambient light from the windows. The basement is unheated/uncooled. There are temperature changes across the year but the yearly average is almost cetainly around 70. I do spot checks of temperatures with a little gun thermometer semi-regularly and see temps in some enclosures in the high 70's in the heat of the summer and in the 50's in the winter. This year I have been using HOBO data loggers to record the temperatures every hour in various enclosures in different areas but I have not yet downloaded the data from the loggers. When I do I will update this post with a graph.

Note the opacum were never rained on and were never outside. I don't know if the breeding predated the egg deposition by several days and took place in the 20 gal or if the breeding occurred in the tote. I don't know which parts of my maintenance were the important parameters to trigger the reproductive condition or the egg deposition. I will say that some "juvenile" male maculatum that I raised from field collected larvae are currently exhibiiting swollen cloacae so it seems likely that the light or temperature cycling (or the combination) are probably important for both of these

I thought I would share this years "success" with breeding opacum. I say "success" because so far I have lots of eggs but it's a long way to go before having metamorphs although I full expect to have success at the level as well.

I maintain six opacum (3.3) in a planted 20 gal long terrarium. I feed them mainly earthworms and crickets but do occasionally offer slugs, waxworms and other items. About two or three weeks ago I first noticed that all of the males each had hugely swollen cloaca (the females had been obviously "fat" for awhile). Interestingly another tank with "juveniles" from a previous breeding had all of the males in the same condition though the same sized females were not swollen.

While doing weekly water changes, I was re-filling an axolotl tank adjacent the opacum 20 gal. It was raining outside and I heard a brief downpour which reminded me of the breeding ready condition of the opacum. I sprayed some water in the aquarium for a few seconds and then continued my cleaning activities. That night when I went down in the basement with my headlamp (something I do nearly every day to observe my salamanders) every single opacum was out which was not typical. I noticed two pairs where a male and female were together and it looked like the female might be following the male.

On Sept 30 I set up an egg deposition tub which is a large green Sterilite tote from the 1990's with two screen covered slots (25 years ago I used this as a cricket breeding bin). I went to a dried up vernal pool nearby and dug up a five gallon buckets worth of soil (this was bone dry even at six inches depth) and placed the soil in the tote. I arranged it so there was a very clear depression in the center of the tote and then added some leaves and a few chunks of decaying logs placed in the depression. The remnants of Hurricane Ian started to come in that afternoon so I pulled the tote out into the driveway to allow the rain to moisten the soil. I checked it occasionally and when it looked "right" I pulled the tote into my garage. I added seven opacum (the 3.3 adults and 1 "juvenile" male) and put the lid on. That night when taking the dogs out I opened the lid and peaked in and saw all of the salamanders actively wandering around. The next day I couldn't see any of the salamanders and that continued over the next several days. I started to worry that maybe the lid wasn't seated correctly at one point and they all escaped so I decided to ascertain whether they were still in the container.

On Oct 5, I carefully moved the leaves and logs and poked around in the soil of the depression and did not see a single salamander. On one side of the tote there was a large flat piece of soil which had held together (probably some roots in it) that I had thought was sitting "tightly" in the soil and that there was no way the salamanders could get under it. I was wrong though and I rolled it back and saw all of the salamanders along with hundreds of eggs. I plan to let the females stay with the eggs and give the larvae a chance to grow until around Thanksgiving when I will remove the eggs and inundate them. I removed all of the males aside from one which was touching a female (I didn't want to disturb the females any more than I had by lifting the soil).

The salamanders are maintained year round in the planted 20 gal long in my basement. The basement has two small windows that allow outside light and I have led lights on all of the enclosures that come on every day from 9:30 AM and stay on until 3:30 PM. The light cycle therefore closely matches the natural light cycle since the transition between night and day is handled by the natural ambient light from the windows. The basement is unheated/uncooled. There are temperature changes across the year but the yearly average is almost cetainly around 70. I do spot checks of temperatures with a little gun thermometer semi-regularly and see temps in some enclosures in the high 70's in the heat of the summer and in the 50's in the winter. This year I have been using HOBO data loggers to record the temperatures every hour in various enclosures in different areas but I have not yet downloaded the data from the loggers. When I do I will update this post with a graph.

Note the opacum were never rained on and were never outside. I don't know if the breeding predated the egg deposition by several days and took place in the 20 gal or if the breeding occurred in the tote. I don't know which parts of my maintenance were the important parameters to trigger the reproductive condition or the egg deposition. I will say that some "juvenile" male maculatum that I raised from field collected larvae are currently exhibiiting swollen cloacae so it seems likely that the light or temperature cycling (or the combination) are probably important for both of these species.

I'm very happy and excited for you! I know your not sure yet if eggs are viable. Fingers crossed! If they hatch out and morph you can count on me for sure to take some off your hands! Thanx for all your hard work and dedication.

 

[frank beard]

Here is an update to this years opacum breeding. On Nov 18, I removed and counted all of the eggs from the nesting container. One nest consisted of larger eggs (n = 242) and another nest consisted of smaller diameter eggs (n = 197). I am not certain if the larger nest was the product of two females or just one since two females were associated with the eggs when I rolled the dirt mat back. The small nest clearly had a single salamander.

On this same day I inundated the eggs and some of the eggs from the 242 clutch hatched the same day. As I removed the eggs from the nest I would place them in piles of 10 eggs in a dish tub full of water. I started this process at 11:04 AM and finished at 12:04 PM (yes exactly an hour!). By 1:33 PM the first egg had hatched, I did not continually watch the eggs but I counted the eggs from the second clutch immediately after I counted the first nest. I finished counting and submerging eggs from the second nest at 12:48 PM and at that time none of the eggs from the larger clutch had hatched. Eggs from the 242 eggs clutch continued to hatch regularly over the next several days and have continued up through the present time. I have been separating the larvae into sets of 15 each housed in a dishtub. I have more dishtubs but have run out of floor space so I will need to do some rearranging and the dishtub with the remaining eggs has roughly 50 larvae in it as well as some unhatched eggs. Since there is no way to tell if "new" larvae are showing up I can't say whether any eggs continue to hatch from this clutch.

The smaller diameter eggs from the 197 egg clutch did not begin to hatch for a much longer time. By Nov 27 only four eggs had hatched although during this week a much larger number have hatched (same dishtub space issue has prevented counting them). Interestingly these larvae are much smaller than the others. I suspect that this might mean that these eggs were fertilized at a much later date but I have no way of determining if that is correct or not. The smaller larvae also seem to have swollen bellies, presumably with yolk. The larger larvae from the other clutch did not appear this way upon hatching and have fed on whiteworms right from the beginning.

We'll see how many larvae make it through metamorphosis. I have raised many A. opacum larvae over the years and have found them be hardy and largely problem free but I have never tried to raise this many before.

 

[axolotl nerd]

Here is an update to this years opacum breeding. On Nov 18, I removed and counted all of the eggs from the nesting container. One nest consisted of larger eggs (n = 242) and another nest consisted of smaller diameter eggs (n = 197). I am not certain if the larger nest was the product of two females or just one since two females were associated with the eggs when I rolled the dirt mat back. The small nest clearly had a single salamander.

On this same day I inundated the eggs and some of the eggs from the 242 clutch hatched the same day. As I removed the eggs from the nest I would place them in piles of 10 eggs in a dish tub full of water. I started this process at 11:04 AM and finished at 12:04 PM (yes exactly an hour!). By 1:33 PM the first egg had hatched, I did not continually watch the eggs but I counted the eggs from the second clutch immediately after I counted the first nest. I finished counting and submerging eggs from the second nest at 12:48 PM and at that time none of the eggs from the larger clutch had hatched. Eggs from the 242 eggs clutch continued to hatch regularly over the next several days and have continued up through the present time. I have been separating the larvae into sets of 15 each housed in a dishtub. I have more dishtubs but have run out of floor space so I will need to do some rearranging and the dishtub with the remaining eggs has roughly 50 larvae in it as well as some unhatched eggs. Since there is no way to tell if "new" larvae are showing up I can't say whether any eggs continue to hatch from this clutch.

The smaller diameter eggs from the 197 egg clutch did not begin to hatch for a much longer time. By Nov 27 only four eggs had hatched although during this week a much larger number have hatched (same dishtub space issue has prevented counting them). Interestingly these larvae are much smaller than the others. I suspect that this might mean that these eggs were fertilized at a much later date but I have no way of determining if that is correct or not. The smaller larvae also seem to have swollen bellies, presumably with yolk. The larger larvae from the other clutch did not appear this way upon hatching and have fed on whiteworms right from the beginning.

We'll see how many larvae make it through metamorphosis. I have raised many A. opacum larvae over the years and have found them be hardy and largely problem free but I have never tried to raise this many before.

they're beautiful frank, i wish you well in raising them to adulthood

 

[Salamander_Mummy]

Saturday morning I checked in on my opacum because two of my females had been hiding under a piece of bark in their water dish lately and to my surprise I found eggs.

I caught these opacum as adults over 4 years ago and up until this past year haven't had any breeding, so this past winter I changed their whole setup around to try and turn that around.

First of, I designed the tank to where the water dish was the lowest point in the tank no matter what part of it the salamanders where at. In my head I thought that this may trick the salamanders into thinking their water dish was a natural depression.

The next major thing I did and I know this may sound odd but I let the temps in the tank get into the low 80's. This I thought serves the purpose of simulating their natural summer and would make them seek shelter deeper into soil. If anyone has looked for them during the summer you know how scarce they become. During the summer months I never refilled their water dish and just let it evaporate naturally. Oh, I should mention that the dish always had some leaves and a large piece of bark in it.

My salamanders go into brumation(reptile hibernation) during the Canadian cold winters, and they stay there for four to five months before emerging from the substrate to breed in spring...

I haven't fed them since November last year when I spent two weeks giving them only fatty wax worms every day, right before their winter brumation.

They are both active and alert now and have been for about two weeks but I won't feed again them until I see their stools drop, and then they get their favourite meals of house spiders(cause I live in the country) and/or earth worms.

I use to bury my pet turtles right before winter too and than dig them back up the following spring, give them a good wash, and they'd be ready to eat.

I've been a herpetologist for almost three decades, I love all the creatures of this planet, especially the ones that go unnoticed.