Terrestrial sources of Carotene

[achiinto]

After some discussion about carotene and the red-belly in this thread, http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=57656, this reminded me of the stages which my newts went through and made me wonder how I can enhance the diet to include more carotene. I fed my newts with brine shrimp during the larvae stage. As they nearly going to metamorphs, I started hand feeding them with bloodworms. Then after they metamorphed, I continued to feed the newts with bloodworm, occasionally diced earthworm, springtails, fruit flies. Then when they became fully aquatic after 1 year on land, I started feeding them mostly earthworm with an occasional bloodworm meal.

My guess is that brine shrimp will be a source of carotene. So, maybe the bloodworm and the earthworm diet were introduced too early in the diet for the newts to grow red belly. The easiest way probably is to feed them with Daphnia during both period before and after metamorph.

Anyone know if there is a good source of carotene for terrestrial morphs, other than putting a dish of Daphnia in terrestrial setup or keep the newts in fully aquatic setup at all time?

 

[Mark]

You could gut load crickets with a fish flake high in carotene such as cyclop-eeze. Feed them 24hrs before you offer to the newts. Another option would be to dust prey items with supplements containing carotenoids - such as this.

 

[fishkeeper]

Well, I am currently investigating the possibility of culturing land shrimp(Taltritus sp.)...which are basically terrestrial amphipods. Not sure if they'd have the carotenes their aquatic cousins do.

 

[Axel01]

I believe that They pick up the carotenoids in their diet.

Most of the aquatic crustacea will get them from a diet that has algae rich in the desired pigments.

 

[achiinto]

Thanks, I guess the challenge is to gut load Carotene into very small terrestrial based invertebrate so that the juvenile newt will take them. In the case of handfeeding bloodworm or earthworm pieces, dusting them with commercial Carotene might be the best solution.

 

[Axel01]

Sounds like a good idea.

I've a feeling that the redness of bloodworm and earthworms is down to oxygen carrying haem based proteins.

There may be a PhD in there somewhere.

 

[josh]

this is what i as well as many others use for poison dart frogs. http://www.naturose.com/ i also use it for my salamanders. it seems to work well. you would just dust your feeder insects with it and feed like normal.