Cynops Orientalis larvae - Missing leg

Hi,

First of all, I'm asking you your indulgence about my English; I'm not a native speaker!

I'm currently trying to raise 6 Cynops orientalis larvae. Most of them are doing great, but I'm concerned about one. Today, when I was doing my daily partial water change, I figured out she had a missing leg. Moreover, others larvae in the tank seemed rather aggressive with that injuried one, forcing me to setup a tank to isolate her.

Here is a picture of the "missing leg"





The wound seems to heal quickly (maybe her "larvae" stage will speed up the healing ?!) but I wonder if I should make some kind of treatment or just let the nature go.

Also, as the next image shows, she seems to be the only one with a "rippled" tail. All the others have a "rounded" tail (see picture 3). Is it a sign of illness or an indicator of metamorphosis ?





All larvae are 5 weeks old and are eating baby brine shrimp (see those "dots" in pictures).

Thank you for your help,
A worried "parent", lol..



(Message edited by xirto on June 30, 2004)

Xirto
It's probably just a weaker larva than the rest - one of the ones who would fall foul of natural selection (survival of the fittest). It will grow back quickly, although to keep it alive it would be best to keep it separated and give it plenty of food.
Good luck!
Chris

It's a good thing you separated the newt, she'll have more chances now. Feed her well and let nature do her job. That's my advice too.

And really nice pictures!
Keep us updated about the missing leg.

Froggy and Xixarro:

Thank you for your reply. The newt is now alone in her tank and she's doing well. She still eats like a little pig and her belly couldn't be more orange! In fact, I think other ones are currently jealous for the special treatment she gets, hehe.

Xixarro:

Thank you for your comment on pictures, i'll update with more during the healing.

This is how the bitten (?) newt is for now:



...And this is how the rest of them looks like:

Hi Pierre-Gilles,
artemia nauplii are an excellent food to start with and your animals look like they're in a very good condition. However, you might want to consider feeding larger organisms after a while, like small bloodworms, white worms or daphnia to beef them up. There are articles on feeding and raising of newts on Caudata Culture (although I am sure you have read them already ).

Smaller larvae sometimes are bullied by their bigger siblings. They will catch up fast if separated and they receive some special care and attention.

Good luck with them.
Ralf

Just a question, but will newt larvae eat nonmoving foods? I've used frozen artemia nauplii for baby livebearers and wonder if this, microworms, and the occasional cyclops and daphnia meal would be sufficient to raise them.

cyclops are actually bad for newt larva since they can attack and kill small larvae

Joseph, I have red on many occasions that baby newts don't eat frozen foods, but ofcourse I had to try that myself.

My cynops orientalis larvae did eat from frozen daphnia, but:
1) not all larvae did so and
2) those who did eat it, didn't eat much, I had to clean up left overs all the time. They were probably just curious about it.

Now I stick to live food.

Ok, guess I will see if I can try to hatch some live nauplii...dunno if just microworms,cyclops, and daphnia would keep em happy enough. I'd bet that if they are fed BBS(baby brine shrimp, for all non fishkeepers ) they will get more color though.

I'm not sure about orientalis larva but I've reared C. cyanureus on nothing but blackworms from the time they hatch. After awhile I didn't even chop the blackworms anymore as the small larva will bite the tips off the worms and ingest them, eating more and more of the worm as they got bigger.

Ed

Xixarro,

As requested, here are some updates about this "missing-leg" newt. Unfortunally, she died this week. It have been hard for me, because of all efforts I deploy for my larvaes. In fact, I lost 2 larvaes this week. I think I overfed them leading to higher concentration of ammonia in the tank. I was so anxious about metamorphosis, trying to get them bigger and bigger.

The good side is that I saved the 4 remaining ones.

If you are interested in the healing process, I give you this picture :



This one comes from a larvae that got her foot bitten off by another one about 1 week ago. We can already see her future fingers!

Also, I've faced a new problem tonight :



The picture says it all. One of my larvae seems to be floating due to a bubble in her stomach. Is it dangerous ?

However, the other ones are just fine, and they really enjoy their brand new elodea canadensis!



Pierre

Pierre
Put the floating larva in very shallow water, just enough to cover it. This will allow it to breathe, but not be stressed by gloating. Put a high concentrATION OF FOOD IN, AND THE BUBBLE WILL BE PASSES FAIRLY QUICKLY.
Chris

Thanks for your reply Chris,

Good news, everyone back on their feet! I gave them brine shrimp and luckily some shrimp went on surface following light, allowing that newt to eat! When I woke up, everything was fine.

The food must have forced the air bubble from the larva's guts.
Chris