Suprise Baby, please advise me!

[sandi]

}}Hello, I think I am a soon to be new newt godmother, and i have a few questions that i didnt see answered in the things i have read. How long is the waiting period from when a female newt becomes fat to when she will start laying eggs? And can my paddletail newt lay her eggs under water without any problems or will she be looking for a land mass to come out of the water to lay on? right now i have a 5 gal. tank filled 3 quarters the way up, with an under gravel water airiater, a huge crawl platform that barely touches the top of the water, and one fake plant. is that a good set up or no?

 

[jennifer]

Sandi, if you have paddletails, this is whole different ballgame. They are very unlikely to breed at all. Do you have 2 of them in a 5-gallon tank?

There is no certain time from when a female gets fat until she lays. Some stay rather fat year-round, it's hard to tell if it's eggs or just fat.

 

[sandi]

Well I feed them frozen brine shrimp cubes, one every couple days so I know they're not being over fed, and Ive seen all the tattletail signs of mating, the male flapping his tail around, and they were both the same size as the male for a long time, then it seemed that the female was a lot fatter then she was supposed to be, like bulging. is there anything wrong with what i have them in?, the 5 gal. tank i mean?

 

[jennifer]

Sandi, you may have already read this, but if not:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Pachytriton/Pachytriton.shtml
In paddletails, tail-fanning is not necessarily a courtship behavior. It is also used as a sign of aggression or territoriality. How bulging is "bulging"? I don't want to be pessimistic, but are you sure she isn't bloated?

A 5-gallon tank is a bit small for any pair of newts. The smaller the tank, the harder it is to maintain good water quality and biofiltration. Given their territorial nature, it is especially small for paddletails. I would suggest that a 20-long tank is not too expensive and a better size for them.

I do hope that they are in breeding condition. But there have been few captive breedings of paddletails. Good luck!

 

[sandi]

Hello. On the bloating subject, its not like tight stomach, cant walk, and acts like its ready to die.... but more like noticibly fatter than after the first 2 months of having her. I dont know. at the beginning of last week i started watching more closely when i feed, and i pretty much feed one cube of frozen brine shrimp every 2 days which i was told was fine, and when i watched them eat it, the male was always on top of it first, ate half of it or a little more, and i could put it by the other one and she seemed disinterested, maybe taking a bite after resting her nose on it forever... They used to fight and bite at each other a lot for the first couple months after i got them, but now they can walk by each other without the aggressiveness, and whenever they are by each other is when the male sits and flaps his tail against his side, but they dont fight, so i thought maybe that was another indicator.