Total carnage

This last week has been a violent one in the pre-moprhed waltl tanks. I have seen the aftermath of some horrible eating disasters. The larvae have started to morph, but have been tearing each other apart, literally. Now that they are bigger and older, an arm ripped off seems to be a much bigger deal.

I have had to amputate 4 limbs now myself and the status on those newts is stable, but at this point its much harder to deal with having a newt swim up with a bone prodruding from the arm. I take the bone off so it is flush with the stump, in hopes it will grow back, so far its still a question of letting them have a mutalated arm permenently, or take it and risk that take it off and not have it grow back at all.

I have others that have gotten tail sections bitten off that started to get weak, and then were attacked by the healthy ones. Now I have a critical care ward, recovery tank, pre=morph tank and a morph tank. Its getting crazy and at this point I almost feel like steping back and letting nature sort it out. Its much more tragic now that the have almost made it to morphing, and die, but I guess this must be the most crucial "do or die" time. Should I keep operating or leave these guys alone? Does anyone else know why things are getting so crazy?

Try keeping some live blackworms in the tank at all times. This will prevent feeding frenzy frenzies you are seeing as they have access to food at all times and won't be exposed to the same stimulus.


Ed

I will give that a shot if i am downtown and can get some. but they do eat them all up withen a few hours, even using subsrtate a few pieces deep. they dig down and eat them

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Quoting Jeff Altenburg on Friday 08 December 2006 - 03:53 (#POST113949):</font>

I have had to amputate 4 limbs now myself
...so far its still a question of letting them have a mutalated arm permenently, or take it and risk that take it off and not have it grow back at all.
...at this point I almost feel like steping back and letting nature sort it out. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
Jeff, I am not sure why you are amputating the legs of your injured newts. All "newts" are able to fully regenerate many parts of their body, including limbs, no matter where it is cut/stripped off. Amputation/injury of the limb of the newt at any point along the shoulder to fingertip will take the same time to heal and grow back. You should be balancing the benefits of cutting a limb off (if it has become infected) versus stressing the newt/larva out with a new open wound.

The main concern is to prevent infection in the open wound and minimizing the attacks. How many metamorphs to a tank are there? I have raised P. waltls, and although they are aggressive eaters, they behave quite well if given enough food and space. If they are at the edge of metamorphosis, they must be pretty large and can probably start to handle nightcrawlers. Waltls are also known to accept trout pellets and frozen bloodworms (the latter easily found at many fish shops) if you have difficulties obtaining live food.

You might consider getting a larger (or more) tank(s), or offering some of them to other people if you cannot handle them all (and don't want to cull).

"Letting nature sort it out" does not settle well with me because they are in an environment which is obviously not natural for them. I think you will feel better about yourself (and the newts will feel better too-heh!) if you made an active effort to get the amount of animals you have down to one you can manage through offering them to other interested people. The "morphs" should be easily shippable, as they are able to remain alive out of the water.

I know that a batch of Pleuros can eat you out of house and home. The pre-morphs are large and unbelievable pigs. I raised a group of about 20 of them; when they reached pre-morph they were housed 4/tub. I had no events of "limb loss" because I kept blackworms in there all the time (or tried to!). When they got big enough, I switched the larvae over to cut-up nightcrawlers, which cost less and keep their bellies stuffed better.

I understand people's reluctance to cull their offspring. But if you cannot keep all the ravenous mouths fed/housed, it's more humane to cull than to let nature sort it out in the form of injury.

Blackworms can be bought for about $30/lb delivered. One pound could probably get this whole batch through to morph, and you could easily get that money back by selling them.

Pleuros do need massive water changes at this stage. Massive eating results in massive pooping. Here is how I managed the housing. I used a row of plastic tubs, each about 10x18" in size. Every other day (at least), I did the following procedure:
1. Setup up a clean tub.
2. Place a large fish net over a waste bucket.
3. POUR the larvae + dirty water through the fish net.
4. Immediately dump the fish net (larvae) into the clean tub of water.
5. Clean out the formerly-dirty tub, and add water for the next batch of larvae, and repeat procedure all the way down the line.

I was using about 3/4 to 1 gallon of water per tub. It was a lot of work to haul the required water. But I don't think I could have raised 20 Pleuros using aquariums - I just don't have (or want to buy) that many aquariums.

(Message edited by jennewt on December 09, 2006)

Pin-pin,

First off, I was amputating limps but only trimming off the prodruding bone, as it would be hard fro the skin to grow over then bone then if it sticks out by a few milimeters. I was also taking off arms or a leg dangling by a thread. I know then can grew new limbs, but I am trying to give them the best chance of growing a complete functioning limb in the shortest ammount of time possible. SO far, all the damaged limbs that I have worked on have all grown back very well with no infection.

I have fed them to the point of them not being able to swim, and I feed them frozen blood worms and blackworms.

I have been trying with all my free time to get them homes, I try at work, on craigslist, here in the for sale section, and through my roomates and my ex. I have yet to place a single newt.

Jen- I have been hesitant to move the main 20 larvae from the main tank, it is very well planted with driftwood and it was actaully the few in a smaller tank that seemed to get the better of each other, but I have dived them up more and the problems are clearing up. I also have had some luck using a few 5 gallon buckets with a small air sponge and some bio-balls for cover.

thanks for the help