The inexperienced newt breeding project - High on fun. Low on practice.

[Kribby]

Hello everyone,

I previously mentioned, in my hello thread, that I had the good fortune to be able to rescue a group of chinese firebelly newts that I nicknamed The Skellies for their emaciated condition. Well, I had been wanting to upgrade their tank for some time since I had 7 in a 10 gallon and I felt that they needed more space. They were originally only supposed to be hanging around my apartment until they were back on their feet so a long term accommodation wasn't initially planned.

Well, they took matters into their own hand the other day and decided to breed and lay eggs all the way through my ricca and floating plants. Given the pending population explosion, my newfound love of them, and my desire to try and raise the tadpoles - I decided to step up my plans and do something about the whole situation last night.

I had three goals in mind when I started the venture:
1 - Give the Skellies a larger enclosure
2 - Separate out the eggs
3 - Separate the tadpoles

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1. Skellies need a new home
This was easy enough to accomplish, I had a 25 gallon tall that was sitting around and just needed to be cleanup up and setup. It was originally going to be a paludarium, but I wasn't sure that was a good idea with newts. So I think I will just work on getting some more rockwork and driftwood for them.

Things are a little sparse right now since I had to pull alot of the plants out, but it should grow in nicely.

The Skellies in their new tank

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2 - Separate the eggs
This actually proved to be an effort in futility! Because a good deal of my floating plants are ricca and duckweed, the eggs were pretty much just giant masses of plant matter. After trying to pick a few out and realized that I would not be able to just toss the eggs in a container. I was worried that the plants would then just die off and foul the water. So after Andrea and I consulted for a bit we decided to leave the plants in the old tank with a bare bottom. Then we could simply remove the newts as they hatched and not have to worry about plant decay.

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3 - Separate the tadpoles
After we emptied out the 10 gallon tank we were in for a bit of a surprise. Turns out that we actually had about 17 little tadpoles swimming around. Fortunately I had gone to Walmart earlier in the day to grab some tupperware containers for "the next phase" in raising these guys. A good thing too! Now I will freely admit that I am not a newt expert or even very knowledgeable but I did read some articles on the website here and I knew that I needed containers with lids. Check. And airholes. No check.

Luckily I had some fish tank stuff laying around that I could use. So I started making newt containment units!

So a little elbow grease later and out swimmers were contained in easy to clean containers. I made 4 of them... hope that is enough lol.

The baby brine shrimp is being prepared as we speak and hopefully there guys do ok!

 

[evut]

Looks like you are taking this very seriously :happy:

Couple of things that come to mind when looking at your photos:
The substrate in you adult tank is probably not the best for newts. Some people have success with gravel but there is a risk of intestinal impaction due to the hoovering method of eating. A thin layer of play sand or bare bottom is safer.

I would put some plants into your larvae tanks so that the little guys can hide and feel safe. I think if you use pieces of floating plants they'll just continue growing so you don't need to worry about decay.

The lids are only needed once the larvae are close to morphing.

 

[Kribby]

Thank you for the advice Eva.

Is it the small grain size of the play sand that is more beneficial to the newts? If so I do have some flourite sand that I could use in the tank as well. It is useful for growing plants as well so I would be better able to give the newts a bit more of a habitat. I am a bit hesitant to use play sand, probably due to my innate desire to keep silicates out of my systems lol! It is a product of trying to minimize brown diatoms in my fish systems.

I will take your advice on adding some plants to the containers though. I can at least get a bit of ricca in there for them. I think I will leave the covers on though. They might not crawl out at this point, but I don't trust my cat not to crawl in!

 

[evut]

Fair point about the cat :happy:

Regarding substrate, I believe Flourite is not suitable because it alters water chemistry but it would be best if you searched the forum. There are loads of threads about substrates.
There is also an article here.
Playsand is used because it's inert. And cheap. If the newts swallow it, it goes straight through.
I have gone from bare bottom tanks to play sand and I'm really happy with it. Plants grow well in it. You can secure them with stones in the beginning.

I'm not sure I understand correctly but are you saying silica promotes diatoms? I did have problems with them both in bare bottom tanks and with sand but it cleared up as the tanks matured.

 

[Kribby]

hmm, interesting indeed. From what I have read and experienced I know that flourite sand is inert as far as altering pH and leeching anything into the water. At least the stuff from seachem. The only thing it has is a high iron content, but that doesn't leech either. I will have to check out the forum and see what people here have noticed about it.

To answer your other question, yes, silica can promote diatoms. Diatoms need silicates in order to grow and usually get them from tap water or the substrate, which is why I avoid the play sands in my other tanks. There are other factors involved, such as nutrients, but most people try to control them through limiting the silicates present. I am sure it isn't such a big issue in this case, but in my marine tank it is lol and my fresh water ones as well.

As I said, I am still learning and if playsand is the best option I will bite the bullet and suck it up as it were