Triturus dobrogicus

[werds]

Wonderfull progress of your newts, please don´t stop to tell us some news about them!

 

[Jensino]

Great thread, fantastic pics of such lovely little newts.

Thank you very much for your kind words!

Wonderfull progress of your newts, please don´t stop to tell us some news about them!

Of course I will keep you updated. In the meantime everyone is welcome to post their own T. dobrogicus pictures and/or experiences. :happy:



Ciao!

 

[Jensino]

The Escapist

Just some shots of my newts hanging out together between Elodea plants. I think the last one is planning an escape *lol*.

 

[Jensino]

Piggyback

At the moment we are suffering under a heatwave in most parts of europe.
I am cooling my tank with crushed ice to keep the water-temperature below 25 °C while room-temperature rises to 27 °C.
Temperatures above 30 °C are rare where I live and usually don't stay long. The weather forecast says that it will get colder next week.
Compared with the place (Tulcea) where my newts origin, my home climate is considered mild. So I am very sure that Triturus dobrogicus is well adapted to higher temperatures.

 

[Jensino]

Please sex my newt!

Female or male? What sex is it?

 

[juraj]

I would say it's a female.

 

[Jensino]

Thank you! :happy: That is also my opinion. The cloaca on a male would be larger and black and the bottom edge of it's tail would be black too.
My last hope is that it's still a juvenile coloration otherwise I have to deal with four females.

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And it will be a pain in the quite complicated to get my hands on a male of that specific location. I hope the breeder still keeps these newts.

 

[Jensino]

It's getting colder and my newts are more often on land, especially at night. One of them managed to burrow a hole into the moss. During the day they usually get into the water again, so it's easy to feed them and right now I'm feeding them a lot. Luckily I'm having an easy time finding nightcrawlers and slugs, because of the wet and cold weather conditions.

 

[Jensino]

To prepare my newts for hibernation I increased the amount of food. In the last two weeks I fed them almost daily and now they are fat and round (check out the pictures) and ready to hibernate. Water temperatures are below 10 degrees Celsius already. I'll still keep my newts aquatic for the next week without feeding and then relocate them to their hibernation terrarium. Pictures of my hibernation-setup will follow soon.

 

[Jensino]

Usually I prefer a simple and hygienic set up for hibernation; just a few hiding spots and a layer of damp paper towel for moistening. It's super easy to clean and safe for the newts/salamanders.
But this time I choose to use a bit more complex set up with soil, moss and a few stones as well. The substrate is piled up in one corner of the terrarium (40x30x25 cm w/d/h) and 15 cm deep. The newts can either dig into the soil or use the wooden hiding spots. On top I placed some moos to increase the capability of keeping the moisture. The small slate plate is an aid for skin shedding. On the left I will add a shallow bowl with water, when the newts move in.
As a lid I use a stainless steel grid and rubber plugs for the drilling.

 

[Jensino]

I placed my newts back to their aquarium. All four of them are fine after two month of hibernating. They barely lost any weight and are currently hunting down the Asellus shrimps that multiplied over the last weeks. :happy:
It`s super chilly (~10 °C) in my herp room with 6 °C water temperature and dim lightning, so it was definitely not a big joy to take these pictures, while shivering. But I am too passionate for this forum.

 

[Jensino]

Eggs!!!

Today is my day off, so I had time to watch my newts and while I took a closer look I found two eggs! :happy:

No crested males so far, but I hope those eggs are fertilized. I am going to seperate the eggs and definitely try to raise them. It's quite certain that there will be even more eggs in the next days. So exciting!

 

[Jensino]

Bad news. The eggs weren't fertilized and didn't develop.
The females deposited several eggs per day between leaves, but all of them went moldy a few days later and disappeared soon.
My number one priority for this year is to get a suitable male for my group of four females.

Gersfeld 2019 #count me in#

 

[Jensino]

Danube crested newt between moss and lichen. :happy:

 

[Jensino]

Green spot algae

Man it is so hard to remove that algae. My algae scraper was useless, I even tried my credit card, but it didn´t work either. :violent:
I just added new razor blades on my grocery list!
And to lose a few words about the actual topic... isn´t that newt beautiful? I really like her, because she is so different. She is so much lighter, yet more colorful than my other crested newts. Since she is the smallest of the group, I feed her directly with the tweezers to ensure she gets an extra portion.

 

[Jensino]

Triturus dobrogicus MALES!

I finally purchased two males. Breeding season is basically over, so the crests are shrunken. But maybe they will spawn in autumn and develop their breeding dress again.

 

[Jensino]

Today one of the males tried to mate with the female, but she kicked him away and leaves him in the dust.

 

[Jensino]

After seeing on facebook that many crested newts are already being in full breeding mode, I decided to end hibernation yesterday. My newts were hibernating fully aquatic and the males started to crest up (5 °C water temperature!). After putting them back indoors they begin to mate the next day at water temperatures of 11 degrees Celsius. :happy: