maculata help!

well i was browsing through the live stock list for pet shop i work at and i noticed spotted salamanders at the bottom of it, myu memory wasnt too good with ambystoma species so i had to look up what they were in BARRON'S - Newts and Salamanders. anyway once i found out what they were i immediately begged the boss to get some in, that was a few days ago and now i have three of them at my home in a temporary set up, a 10 inch by 4 inch by 4 inch sweater box (i know its appaling but im going to move them into something comfortable asap) any way im keeping them on coconut fibre, with peices of collected wood (microwaved to kill off any harmful nasties) and some live sheets of moss with a small water bowl. im pretty sure that there W/C (no im not a fan of W/C which is why im breeding my fire sals even though they yield no profit) and there constantly hiding under the moss and wood.

my main questions are what sort of temperature range do they like? at the moment im keeping them at 16C in my garage ( i live in england so i have no idea about what there temp ranges are like in there american habitat) and besides that, im going to be buying them some larger enclosures tomorrow and i was wondering what sort of set up to go with, ive got a good amount experiance with salamandra salamandra if there husbandry is anything like them.

any help would be much appreciated, and thanks for reading this ramble of a thread.

marco.

I am going to assume that you are talking about Spotted Salamanders, "Ambystoma maculatum". If so, everything sounds OK. They are fine at room temperature, but cool is always best. I am not sure what 16C is in F, but if it is in your garage, that should be fine. As for setups, a woodland setup is best. Mine is kept on a soil/cocofiber mixture with some live plants and moss.

There is also a small water dish. I mist it once or twice per day in order to keep it humid but not quite damp. A.maculatum is a very shy species, so expect to only see them at night. Even with that said though, I see mine a lot and find it to be one of my favorite species. Good Luck!

60

Right well there being kept at 60F not sure if thats too cold for them but i figure if there living underground it would be cool like that? my room can be quite fluctuating in temperature range (60-77F which to me is quite a large range) besides that I've bought them some really useful boxes now so they will have there own enclosures, going to put them on a coconut fiber sub and just decorate as a woodland set up. by the way if there gravid what sort of water parameter should i provide them with? can i just use a large water bowl or do they need a good few inches in water depth to lay there eggs?

once again any help would be much appreciated.

Marco.

This species has never been bred in an indoor enclosure to my knowledge. Very few keepers have bred them in outdoor pools. Unless you plan to put them outdoors I wouldn't bother with anything more than a shallow water dish. Mine don't even get that. I over wintered mine between 0 and 5 C for a couple of months. Anything over 25C is not ideal and potentially fatal. Mine are kept in shallow plastic containers with topsoil. Plastic tubes are sunk into the soil and the salamanders use these as their burrows. They are extremely shy but if you're patient you can train them to take food from tweezers at the mouth of their burrows.

all right, thanks for the help, ill post up some pics of the set ups soon.

marco.