New(t) season

For the second year in a row I'm breeding cynops orientalis. But unlike last year I don't intend to breed as many eggs as possible. I'd rather focus on my pleuro's this year (and I still have morfs from last year).
But on the other hand I couldn't just let all the eggs be eaten so I thought I'd experiment a bit.

Experiment1
2 eggs were laid before I put my cynops to a colder winter setup. I didn't feed these two guys, but just let them be in the tank (without parents). For almost 2 months they survived on micro food only. Now the parents are back they were moved to an other tank and are being fed now. They grow steadily now. Here they are:


My first experiment was a succes. I didn't expect them to survive this long on microfood only, not to mention grow four legs.

Experiment2
In the winter setup (plastic box behind a single glass window - no sun, 6-13°C) my female c.o. laid a few more eggs. I'm not sure how many as she laid them in java moss and I didn't notice till after I brought the setup into my livingroom, where three eggs hatched.
At that time I decided to try to keep them outdoors. They are now in a plastic box filled with water from a small pond including algae and little insect and stuff. I removed all 'dangerous' animals and check every few days.
They are now outside for two weeks and are still alive. They have frontlegs and look healthy.

Experiment3
This is my control group. Today I removed 6 eggs from the tank and I will handle like I handled all eggs last year. Meaning clean setups, live food, etc...
I want to check which method is more efficient or whether the 'easier' methods works equally well.
Here are the six eggs in question. They are hidden in the folded leaves. Couldn't do a better close-up than this:


I'm sorry to say that I can't to this in a scientific way.
1) I didn't start taking noes at start
2) I don't have tools to compare water quality
3) I don't have time to start writing reports on it now as I'm to busy with my thesis now.

However, I will keep you updated. Maybe with my experience this year, I could do it in a decent way next year or so

Joeri

I look forward to your results, Joeri, even if they are not systematic. In my experience with C. pyrrhogaster, raising them with the parents works as well (or better) than raising them in clean tubs. The best results (consistently large morphs) are obtained using a seperate old cruddy tank, but raising with the parents is the easiest. I do add daphnia and live blackworms to the adults' tank when there are larvae present.

Last year I left some with the parents, none survived... the parents. Cynops orientalis seem to have a lust for their own breed. Even eggs are not save. If they can't get the egg, they'll eat the leave with the egg.
And yes I feed my cynops enough

(Message edited by xixarro on April 13, 2005)

Here's an update:

Experiment 1:
Both are still alive and look healthy. They grew some more, but don't start morphing yet.

Experiment 2:
They are still outside and they are still alive. They have grown and are darker now, but strangely they don't seem to grow behind legs (yet). In my experience they have behind legs at this size (+/- 1cm)

Experiment 3:
Two eggs didn't survive, 3 have hatched this week and a fourth will hatch any day now.

That's it for now
Joeri

Another update:

Experiment 1
One of the two has just morfed now. I provided a tank with few moist land and I don't feed there. Seems he's been in the water again already (yesterday he didn't have duckweed on his back )

Experiment 2
I'm not sure if all three are still alive as I don't disturb the tank. At least two are and they are muck darker in colour (100% black). The are already a big bigger than the two in experiment 1 and don't look close to starting to morf.
The amazing thing is the temperature changes they survived. Being outside they survived mild frost and temperatures up to 36°C! As the heat continues I do add a bit of colder water now.

Experiment 3
All 4 survived but one is still so small he probably won't survive. The other three are as big as the ones in experiment1. I have just put them together in the same tank now.

First conclusions:
1) The little larves can survive on microfood for a long time, but it slows their growth. Larves that are three months younger are equally big now (the ones in exp3)
2) The three outside had more access to both microfood and bigger food like daphnia and are the biggest now. They also develloped their colour allready. They are as black as their parents, though they don't have a belly pattern yet.
3) Cynops orientalis larves can survive extreme temperatures. Eggs were laid at 13-15°C, they now survived 0°C up to 36°C (ofcourse, that's not the water temperature).

Ok, that's it for now.
I hope this maybe useful in some way.

Joeri

Interesting experiment Joeri. I've also noticed the larvae seemed to like dirty tanks-especially if the mulm at the bottom had lots of blackworms in it.

Your experiment seems to show that larvae will morph larger at colder temperatures but too many variables are working to find out. Keep us updated in any case