Marbled help

I've recently come into the possession of a marbled salamander, and an employee at a pet store directed me here.

I've been having trouble finding out what the proper diet for her (I think it's a female, anyways), mainly because it's hard to find any information on them in my area. I also need to know what a good substrate would be and what humidity levels are best.

I've been giving her crickets, and I THINK she's eaten a few, though I haven't actually seen this happen. The crickets shouldn't be able to escape from the new tank I bought, and one of the two I put in there disappeared already. I've put some live red wigglers in a dish to see if she'll eat them, but I still have yet to see her actually eating anything.

Hey Wes

It isn't unusual to not see Ambystoma salamanders eat especially when their habitat has recently changed. You can put it on a substrate of potting soil that has NO fertilizers in it or sphagnum. Use some leaf litter and rocks and bark for hides. Lots of people like to put sections of PVC piping in their vivs to make easy and good hides. These sals love to burrow so it will very likely use those. Mist the tank daily or every other day at a minimum. I also like to use a shallow bowl for ambystomids for the all-to-common days when I forget or can't find time to mist.

this should help you

http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Ambystoma/A_opacum.shtml

It sounds like you're trying the right things, in terms of feeding. See http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods.shtml Marbled sals are especially secretive, so this makes it more challenging to make sure they are eating. One thing that worked for me was to cut up a nightcrawler into chunks (large enought that they still wiggled) and putting them near the "exit" of the hiding place where the sals stayed. It was easy to check back later, count the number of chunks, and know for sure if they were eating or not.

For substrate, I use a 40/40/20 mixture of coco-fiber (bed-a-beast type product), plain bagged top soil (not potting soil), and cypress mulch or fir bark.

definitely shy critters. my marbleds will move a couple inches out of their pvc tube hides to find food then return. they will also burrow and hide under rocks and within the substrate with just their heads poking out waiting to snap at bugs.

here's my viv. the substrate consist of packed layers of sand,charcoal, and topsoil as a floor and a mix of cocofiber/topsoil/cypress mulch/leaf litter as the burrowing substrate. 4 capped pvc elbows filled with moss function as hides.moisture i keep from 60-80%. in these pics i let the top layer dry out a little to encourage feeding but it was still moist underneath or if stirred

Ah, thanks for the help. From the looks of it, I don't need to provide a water dish, so long as the substrate is moist, right?

I haven't put a dish in there so far, and she seems fine. I bought one of those fogger devices, but I might have over done it with the amount of fog I let it produce, so I'm gonna fix that problem tonight.

The employee of the pet store directed you here?

THAT IS AWESOME!

THIS CALLS FOR A CELEBRATION!

OT warning!!!!

Tony

I use sterilite tubs often too. What do you use for a lid? I've used the lids that come with them but I think I'm going to start using screens so I can see in better without too much disturbance. Just wondering what you do.

John the sterlite lids i use have this bubble in the center. i cut that out to a 24in x 10in hole and make a screen top with some parts from home depot; window screen and L and rectangle braces to screw and secure the screen. it's not that pretty but it works, you can sorta see it in my avatar but thats a smaller tank. i usually keep it covered with a towel anyways to retain moisture. my group makes an appearance when hungry. today 2 of them are about 2in out of the caves in the back, another buried under but visable by that orangish triangle rock on the right, the 4th i believe is in one of the caves in front.

Wesley, i have a small water dish, but don't use it. they spend the majority of there time on the damp moss in there caves or buried in the substrate. maybe someone else with marbleds can chime in here but from what i've read they are the really poor swimmers with there chunky bodies and tend to avoid water more than other ambystoma.

for some reason, the humidity won't stay up. a couple days ago, I got the humidity to stay around 80%, but now it keeps dropping to around 50%. the only difference in the setup is that there is more substrate than before, because I over did it with the fogger and turned the substrate to thin mud. Anyway to correct this?

ambystoma tend to be pretty hardy. as long as the substrate is moist they should do well.
what type of substrate are you using?
sometimes adding more or a mix of substrates will suck up moisture. example you already using cocofiber and added mulch or bark. if dry when added the mulch/bark will soak up alot of that moisture and slowly re-release it

how large is the tank and is a top used?
my tub is about 31Lx18Wx13H and the screen hole i cut into the top is 24Lx10W. it holds moisture well but sometimes i do cover the screen 3/4 with a towel, jeans, sweatpants to increase the days between mistings. another thing that can affect hunmidty is air current, not sure about the weather in AR but a fan or other source of moving air will increase the drop

possibly the fogger is causing problems. a recent thread HERE discusses how a fogger may increase temps and oversaturate a tank.

The substrate I use is a mix. I've got a mix of the bark my sister uses for her snakes, a little sand, some moss, and this stuff called jungle bed makes up the rest. The bark, sand, and moss mixture is all at the bottom. The fogger doesn't generate any heat, and I think the ceiling fan was causing the problems with the humidity. Something that just occurred to me is that my terrarium is next to my sister's snakes, near the heating lamp for them.

A couple questions I forgot to ask:

1) How often to marbled salamanders eat?
2) what kind of lighting do I need?

No lighting needed unless you have the viv planted and then use a very low wattage fluorescent. Definitely get it away from heating lamps!!

Me personally, I would ditch the fogger. I see very little value in them for caudates, expecially Ambystoma. But if you like the effect then there should be no harm.

I usually feed every other day or every third day. At the very least once a week when I'm really busy with other things.

On the topic of moisture... since I can tend to get lazy, I've employed a water dish with moss draped over the side into the water before. Water will wick out of the bowl and into the surrounding substrate fairly slowly and maintain a nice moist area.

actually, the fogger hasn't caused any problems this time around, now that I know what the humidity levels need to be. It causes an even spread of moisture, and I only keep it on long enough to get the humidity around 70% or so, then I unplug it.

So far, after turning the ceiling fan off and scooting the terrarium away from the snakes, I haven't had any problems. Even though I'm certain that nothing currently kept in there can get out, I still keep checking to make sure that she's just burrowed to the bottom somewhere and not escaped.