C. cyanurus larvae

garrison · Dec 27, 2004

Ok, so my larvae have all officially hatched and the seem to be developing. Here's a pic:

My problem is, I'm not sure if they are eating. I have a healthy culture of microworms and I dab a few in front of each one once a day. I read in the "raising newts from eggs" article that they will "hop" for food when they first begin eating. I don't really see them hop, they swim, but it looks like they are just trying to get away from the agitation of little worms swimming on them. Some have only been hatched for a few days, others for a week or more. I'm doing daily water changes and they seem healthy. Maybe I'm overthinking and this is really what they are doing, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

hayden · Dec 27, 2004

Garrison, wonderful. Good Luck with them. I wouldnt be too worried if they aren't eating at this point. And they could still be eating worms and you are just not seeing it.

Hayden Asche

P.S. check your email.

ralf · Dec 28, 2004

Hey Garrison,
the larvae will start to feed externally as soon as the yolk is used up. Yours seem to be at different developmental stages. You might want to sort them by age or stage. There is a description of how Ed. K. raises them somewhere on this forum, might want to conduct a search in the firebelly section. Don't just feed Microworms but a mixture of these with freshly hatched Artemia nauplii to be on the safe side. From my own experience they will readily feed on Artemia. A red belly is proof for the preying on brine shrimp as the red nauplii will be visible through the transparent belly. When the larvae swallow they will "hop" but also the gill ends will twitch. You should be able to observe this shortly after you put food in the raising tank.
Keep us updated.
Ralf

jesper · Dec 28, 2004

I raised mine on Daphnia(and some microworms), throw in some adults and some food for them and they will start producing loads of babies in BBS-sizes.

mike · Dec 28, 2004

I recently hatched some cyanurus eggs that took 7 days to reach me through the post. Of the 22 eggs, 20 were viable and well developed, although many were very small, and failed to hatch. Water temperature was 20C. 12 larvae became free swimming, and after yolk absorption fed on moina and microworms. I lost them all within 10 days, their tails either developed kinks, or grew at an angle of 30-40 degrees from normal.....bugger.

garrison · Dec 28, 2004

That's too bad Mike. I've lost quite a few due to developmental deformities but the 20 or so I have left seem to be quite free of kinks and I think I only saw one that swam in a circle.

I'll probably try to hatch some Artemia soon but I've got a ton of Daphnia just waiting for them to get big enough. Can anyone guess when they will be large enough to tackle the Daphnia? I'm not sure what you meant by your post Jesper but it sounds like you put the Daphnia in to begin with.

hayden · Dec 28, 2004

Garrison, what I believe Jesper is saying is If you put adult daphnia in they will produce baby daphnia which are small enough for the Larvae to eat.

jesper · Dec 28, 2004

Hrm...I didn't think my english was that bad...
Yes I put in adults and they produce babies. The larvae eat the babies and leave the baby producing adults to keep producing babies. Larvae raising according to John Clare

Btw I got 23 C.c. eggs of which only 8 were viable, probably due to the below zero conditions they were exposed to. Those that hatched had no problems at all. So when I left my home the 22 second I had 8 larvae... When I returned I had what seemed as 2 left alive

1 was ok, 1 was twitching, 2 was half-eaten, 4 floated upside down and didnt respond to poking.
The water probably went bad, I gave them extras of daphnia before I left and they had a quite small container. The twitcher seemed to pass later as well.
However this morning 5 was alive again...don't know if any will survive though - some swim awkwardly. Next time I will let them starve when I go away, the strange thing was that the Daphnia was all over the place - I thought Daphnia would be more sensitive than larvae to bad water.

garrison · Dec 28, 2004

Sorry to hear about that Jesper, and no your english isn't that bad, I guess I just misinterpreted the statement, I pictured you throwing in adult newts and letting them make babies

, I guess I was a little tired!

william · Dec 29, 2004

Ya Garrison I thought the same thing as you.

jesper · Dec 29, 2004

Hehe, you guys are crazy...

jennifer · Dec 29, 2004

I have some C.c. larvae right now also. Ten eggs were shipped, 6 survived shipping, and 4 made it to hatching. After a long wait for hatching, they are also taking a LONNNG time to start eating.

Regarding daphnia, I have several pieces of mesh-type fabrics that I use to strain them. In this way I am able to separate out the tiny baby daphnia from the larger ones.

These larvae are big enough (at hatching) for tiny daphnia, no problem. Now, if only I could see them eat I would feel better. It has been at least 2 weeks since they hatched, and I've seen no obvious feeding.

Jesper, sorry about your disappearing larvae

Unfortunately, larvae and vacations don't mix well.

garrison · Dec 30, 2004

Well, mine have definitely started eating now and when I have access the the daphnia I'll probably stick them in.

What kind of fabric are you using to strain them Jenn? Will It make a difference what daphnia species I have? I think it's D. magna.

jennifer · Dec 30, 2004

As of today, one of my larvae has an obvious bulge at the abdomen, so it must be eating. It's been a long wait, though. The first one hatched just after Thanksgiving (end of November). They have been kept fairly cool the whole time, around 63F, so that may have slowed them down.

The fabric I use to separate the daphnia was sold as mosquito netting. I am able to sort out small ones from both D. magna and a wild-caught pulex-sized strain.

paris · Jan 1, 2005

here's my input, a photo of the egg of one of these guys

edward · Jan 2, 2005

I have always just kept them with a supply of blackworms. They bite the ends off the worms and as the parts regrow, consume them as well.
I used to chop the blackworms but then I got lazy. If you want you can chop the black worms until the larva get decently mobile and then just leave a supply of blackworms in with them. The larva get very big quickly this way.

Ed

garrison · Jan 2, 2005

How big were they ed? I was thinking of going this route as my lfs said that they are now carrying live blackworms.

edward · Jan 2, 2005

At metamorphosis they would be about the size of adult C. orientalis.

Ed

garrison · Jan 2, 2005

how far along were the babies when you fed them the blackworms? sorry

edward · Jan 3, 2005

I started keeping some chopped pieces in with them at hatching. Later on at work, I would just start putting some in with them at hatching (I would sort for small ones).

Ed

C. cyanurus larvae

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