What's the best way to raise C. Orientalis larvae?

[Gingrich]

I've been doing a lot of reading on the forum and on Caudata Culture (of course!) and I'm still wondering what's the best way to raise Cynops Orientalis larvae. I'm either going for a simple ten gallon setup with an air stone-powered Hydro I sponge filter (with smaller containers or dividers to seperate different sizes of larvae) or plastic storage bins with frequent water changes. What kind of water level should I have and which method is the best? (Feel free to ignore next paragraph)

B.T.W. I'm just preparing for larvae. I am 95-97% sure I have a male and a female. The female looks like text-book gravid and the male often follows her around and/or tries to cut her off. He also has a swollen cloaca. I got them as juveniles about year ago and they live in a fairly planted (with Elodea and Java moss), 20 gallon (long) tank with about 4.5 inches of water (from bottom of ~1 in. gravel to top of water). They are fed with blackworms and occasionally freeze-dried bloodworms and appear very healthy. I plan to feed the larvae finely chopped blackworms.

I'm trying my best to raise these newts (and their possible babies) appropriately and I would appreciate any tips (I'm very excited). I've already read http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtml , http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/why_larvae_die.shtml , http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml , and http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Cynops/C_orientalis.shtml. How is my plan so far?

Thanks,
Oskar

 

[Azhael]

Have you considered raising with the parents? A 20gallon tank for a pair of orientalis is pretty big, and if it´s very well planted, you could raise the larvae there no problem. You won´t get as many as a succesfull "outside" raising, but it will be effortless, and you´ll get only the stronger ones, which by the way will grow nice and fast.
Just a comment though...
Either of the methods you mentioned would work fine too, i guess.

 

[Jennewt]

I agree that raising with the parents is an option. However, the limitation on this method is the tank must be set up such that the larvae can find small food. For example, a filter will remove daphnia. And gravel will hide blackworms too well. The larvae can "scavenge" very well for the first half of their growth, but by the second half they need a substantial amount of food, and they may (or may not) be able to get that in a tank with the adults.

The next best method I would recommend would be a cycled, heavily-planted tank with just an airstone. However, this would mean setting up the tank as soon as you see the first egg. It would help to set it up with some of the ornaments and plants from the adults' tank. There would be some risk of smaller ones being eaten by larger ones, but overall they will be larger and healthier than if you raise them in bare tubs. Some species do fine in bare tubs, but Cynops not so well.

 

[Gingrich]

How large of a tank would you recommend, and what should the water level be? Could I use one of those "net-breeder" things to make sure the larvae were fed and safe?

Thanks

 

[Gingrich]

I think you're right that it might be hard for them to get food in the adult's tank. If I added some more feeding dishes and/or cleared the gravel in some places would they be able to find the chopped blackworms easily?

 

[Jennewt]

The size of the tank would really depend on how many eggs you want to raise. If a 10-gallon tank is the most manageable size for you (it's certainly the cheapest!), then you would need to add no more than about 20-30 eggs. If your newts produced more than that, you'd have to decide what to do (allowing the rest to stay with the parents, or setting up another tank, or sending the eggs to other people, or throwing the eggs away).

Blackworms won't stay long in a feeding dish. Even if you had gravel in only half of the tank, this would still provide enough place to hide about a million blackworms (my very scientific estimate:crazy. Blackworms are very skilled at packing themselves into even the tiniest hiding place. You'd have to get rid of most of the gravel, and it also helps to elevate any flat bricks/rocks (I use Legos for this), so that the blackworms cannot pack large numbers of themselves under them.

 

[Sazbob]

I have seven newts and i don't actually know who the parents are out of them but i just discovered a baby in my tank and i tried to take it out to like raise it on it's own but i couldn't so i've just left it there. It seems to be getting on quite well. I'm feeding it frozen lobster eggs cause where i live i can't get a reliable source of live food but it seems to like them. So i would say that raising them with the parents is fine but i can't really back that up until i see if it survives. Oh and i've had a baby before and i raised it in a separate tank but it died of a fungal infection cause the filtration wasn't good so that's another reason why i decided i would try to just leave it in the main tank.