Tell us your good news

J

john

Guest
I thought I would take this opportunity to invite you all to tell the rest of us about your recent successes with your newts and salamanders or any news you'd like to share. Tell us:<ul>[*]Have you bred anything recently? If so, what? Are you raising youngsters? How are they doing? <LI>Have you recently acquired a new species and have observations to share? <LI>Have you fallen for a species? Please tell us why!
happy.gif
[/list]
 
I will start the ball rolling by delivering my latest news. As of September 1st I am now resident in Dublin, Ireland again. The move went quite well and my tiny 2 species collection did well with the move (unfortunately I was forced to shrink the collection over the last few months due to my huge workload which thankfully has now eased).

I intend to breed my Tylototriton verrucosus soon again now that I have space once more. I first need to wait for my Daphnia cultures to reach sufficient levels for feeding larvae. I'm keen to discover if this species will breed as easily in the relatively soft water here in south Dublin compared to the very hard water in southern England in which they were last kept.

The three youngsters I kept from the last spawning are at metamorphosis. One metamorphosed about 4 weeks ago while one is metamorphosing right now. The third is still a larva.

My Neurergus kaiseri are as shy of light and vibration as ever, but they are feeding well. I still have little idea of the gender situation. I'm hopeful that they'll be breedable in early 2004.

I'm currently on the look-out for Salamandra and Cynops ensicauda xxx now that I have the space!
 
Hi All

I'm currently raising a late batch of axolotls. They're two weeks old and healthy. I have ~300 of them in four colours: melanoid, wild type, golden albino, and melanoid albino.

Very very chuffed
smile6.gif


Still in love with the mutant axy in the photo gallery though
love.gif


Proud of my hatch and constantly hatching brine shrimp but they're worth it!

Claire
 
Congratulations on your babies Claire! Raising larva is fun. I sure wish we could arrange some trades, I have no melanoids.
I'm actually somewhat delighted with the developement of some of the axolotls I hatched out last year. Not only do I have that mutant you are all so fond of ( he's looking good folks!) but the other 4 I kept from that hatch are growing into rather enourmous, solid bodied animals with extremely long and erect gills. One of the females is a golden who is 9 inches at 7 months of age! I have not been doing anything to increase the growth rates other than good diet and lots of space per animal.
Other than that, my colony includes 12 adult animals and assorted young.
Oh, as an item of interest. I had a larva hatch with extremely severe S shaped scoliosis that for several reasons I decided to raise anyway. It is now 3 inches and once it developed the back legs, the spine began to straighten. It now appears perfectly normal.
I'm spending a lot of time in front of my T. natans but since they aren't caudates, I won't bore you.
 
Like John, I just moved. I moved from soft water (eastern US) to very hard water (western US). I now have a basement. In the 3-4 weeks my newts have been here, three species are already showing signs of possible breeding, and the Notophalmus v. dorsalis already layed some eggs! I knew having a basement would be good for the newts, but I had no idea it would be THIS good! I better dig that brine shrimp hatchery out of my boxes of junk!
 
My verrucosus larvae have morphed and are all doing very well, and it is little suprise that I've fallen for this species aswell!
Chris
 
Like Jennifer and John, I also moved recently. It's funny because I moved from an area with very hard water to one with soft water. Anyways, my T. torosa and T. granulosa have been amplexing for a few days, and I have found eggs in my P. waltl tank (although they were not fertile). For the first time ever, my Paramesotriton chinensis male is showing breeding signs, and the female looks gravid! Hopefully something will come of that.

As for youngsters, my C. ensicauda popei, C. pyrrhogaster, and T. marmoratus juveniles are growing very nicely, although none will be ready for breeding this year, but maybe next year.
 
Currently have some T. shanjing larvae - about 35 - feeding on daphnia and microworm of which half the house seems to have been given over to culturing! All doing well and about a week - a week and half old - no losses after hatching as of yet.

Hopefully all will go well
 
Congrats everyone on your babies, it sounds like a lot of fun!
I just joined the hobby, I got my first newts about 1 1/2 month ago, I got 2 pleurodeles waltl and one pachytriton labiatus, they were all together at the pet shop in a 5 gallon tank and all have an uneven number of toes and small chunks od tails missing to prove it. They all seem well in their new quarters. The ribbed newts are really funny and goofy and have been molting a lot. After eating their old skins, I noticed they always go through the same ritual of yawning and then bringing their front legs up on each side of their body, and bring their eyes in their head, they look like the picture of contentement. The position is similar to that of the male in aplexus, (from what I have seen on pictures anyways). Did anyone else notice that?

-Isabelle
 
Isabelle - Pleurodeles and Tylototriton males do this when aquatic. This is the sort of position they assume (minus the eyes) when in amplexus but they seem to do it for other reasons too - I'm not sure why. It's almost like they're relaxing :/.
 
Seems like soft water might trigger breeding, at least in some sprecies. Would it be safe to add water from a water softener to a tank? Would I do it bit by bit or in 'one fell swoop' ha ha?
The animals in question are paramesotriton fuzhongensis.
cheers and congrats to evryone,
Chris
 
I've heard different things about water from a softener. Some say it's too salty (salt replaces the hard minerals), some say that the amount of salt is too small to matter. I don't know, but I'd be careful. You could mix tap and distilled water instead. Good luck with breeding!
 
Hi My name is Leonie from Auckland, New Zealand I have 2 sets of breeding axys. I currently have around 100 babies sitting on my kitchen bench in a couple of large plastic tanks. I fed them daphnia and about 30 or so died - may have been air in the stomach - then I tried a brine shrimp hatchery but after 3 day still no shrimp!! now i am feeding very finely chopped frozen bloodworm and frozen axy food cut really fine - they seem to be eating well but i have to clean out the tanks every night so they don't get fungus - I have separted them in to blacks and whites as the blacks seem to be much bigger - fingers crossed it all goes well. Any comments or help greatly appreciated. will post some pics soon}
Cheers
Leonie
 
Only juvies that I'm raising this year are Cynops ensicauda popei, and some Taricha granulosa. I got eggs from a few other species, but the eggs either died, or I didn't take the eggs out because no one wanted them.

~Aaron
 
T. torosa morph finally big enough to eat pinhead crickets. He's lost his stripes--you can see recent pictures
here.

Still quite runty and shy, I haven't gotten it to feed in my presence unfortunately. However, it's got quite the beautiful <font color="ff6000">orange</font> belly going for it.
 
Hi fans;-)
Yes, I´m currently raising Tylototriton "verrucosus"-Youngsters.
Not my own ones,because they belong to two different lighter "forms".
My dark verrucosus (The same John Clare has),
can´t breed because I divided the tank,
because there aren´t enough people I would like to give some,....
My own CB02 T.shanjing grow on very well,
their brothers and sisters of the year 2000
had to move in a bigger terrarium because they´re
up zo 12cm now,...
I´m going to get some more T.kweichowensis to raise,
my Adults will breed more efficiently after a winter without moving with their daddy,...
Same with my T.taliangensis,
which surprised my a lot some hours ago:
A female(Yes she surely is one!!!) waged with her tail like a male in some special moments,
but their potential husband was me, standing in front of the tank!;-)
And the male:He has all typical signs of a male in breeding season,
like already all of the warmer part of the year,
but nothing happened so far,...
Does anyone of you know this behavior?(Maybe of other species?)
thanks for reading,
Philipp
 
Hi Everyone,
I have bred T.Marmoratus,T.verrucosus and Ensicauda Popei this year.
I have 40 popei larvae and 30 verrucosus larvae at the moment, the marmoratus have morphed and are growing well.
I am getting through loads of live food at the moment, the verrucosus are eating me out of house and home!
I have 15 popei that have morphed and 5 verrucosus that morphed about 3 months ago.

We are having plans drawn up for a large extension on the house at the moment with a large portion of it for me and my newts!

Good luck to everyone with the captive breeding!!
 
Well, I've bred C. orientalis (still laying), N. v. louisianensis, and Eurycea multiplicata this year.

I was also given some T. verrucosus larvae which are looking very good.

The tigrinum larvae I collected a few months ago have all transformed except for one. Very different patterns on these than other local tigers I've found...they are more or less a dark brown animal with a fine peppering of small yellow spots. I Hope to have a picture of them soon.
 
I've got about 40 vittatus babies that are doing well. This upcoming season I'll be trying some more triturus species, Probably critasus, montodoni, and marms if I can find some females to match up with my boys.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Dnurnberg: I'm trying to put the l +1
    Back
    Top