Triturus dobrogicus larvae set-up

caudatadude28

caudatadude28

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AJ
I currently have 20 dobro eggs and about 6-10 are developing. I have a 15inch by 24 inch rubbermaid for them. The thing is, its only 6 1/2 inches tall. I could fill it with about 5 1/2 inches of water. I think it would be good because of surface area. It would reduce aggresion between the larvae. I am looking for some java moss to put in it and wonder if java moss is a good idea. I will have an air stone on one end. What else should I have? Is 5 1/2 inches of water enough? Also are rubbermaids good for culturing monia/daphnia? And how about a brine shrimp set up? Do daphnia need an all day and night light or can it just be at night?
 
caudatadude28 said:
I currently have 20 dobro eggs and about 6-10 are developing. I have a 15inch by 24 inch rubbermaid for them. The thing is, its only 6 1/2 inches tall. I could fill it with about 5 1/2 inches of water. I think it would be good because of surface area. It would reduce aggresion between the larvae. I am looking for some java moss to put in it and wonder if java moss is a good idea?
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Hey AJ, the Java moss certainly couldn't hurt and would probably be better for the little guys to hide in. Just do daily to every other day water changes.

caudatadude28 said:
I will have an air stone on one end. What else should I have? Is 5 1/2 inches of water enough?
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I would also remove the air stone at first, in a container that small the current from the stone would probably stress the larvae out more than it would do good.

caudatadude28 said:
Also are rubbermaids good for culturing monia/daphnia? And how about a brine shrimp set up? Do daphnia need an all day and night light or can it just be at night?
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How big is the rubbermaid container your talking about? What do you want to know about brine shrimp setups?
 
For the daphnia, it would probly be a 2.25-4 gallons. For the brine shrimp I would probably use 2-liter bottle for a hatching container. What do copepods eat? What is a good food for larvae past the daphnia stage? No blackworms. How big are copepods?
 
I can't say for sure that the size container your planning on using is suitable enough for daphnia, as the smallest thing I have cultured them in is a 10gal tank. I use whiteworms when my larvae get to big for the brine shrimp and pond water critters.
 
HTML:
Copepods are small, between 1-2mm.

Adult daphnia are a little large for newly hatched triturus larvae. Note - if your eggs are already developing then you're probably too late to start a daphnia culture. It takes quite a few weeks or even months to get an established culture you can actually harvest from. In my opinion a successful daphnia culture is nothing short of a dark art so I wouldn't personally rely on it as a sole food source.

BBS are a good starter food and when the larvae reach around 1.5cm you can start offering daphnia. I find that advanced triturus larvae with rear legs will happily take frozen bloodworm from tweezers if you wiggle them a bit.

It's worth mentioning that triturus larvae become mid water feeders and will stay off the bottom of the tank. Plants will provide the necessary habitat for them to lead this mid water existence.
 
Is there much of a risk of introducing disease by putting a petstore aquatic plant in with the larvae?
 
One of them hatched last night! It is sitting on the bottom at this moment. Not on its side, on its belly. It is in a plastic shoebox with a fake plant and a little amount of sand from the parents cage.(accidental) I put some baby brine shrimp in there but it is hard for me to harvest my baby brine shrimp. I could not use the two liter bottle method because of lack of supplies so I used this method:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_brineshrimp_hatchery.php
Please help with ideas of harvesting along with how many eggs and how much salt. Is this a good method?
 
caudatadude28 said:
I put some baby brine shrimp in there but it is hard for me to harvest my baby brine shrimp.
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Do you have a brine shrimp net? I've seen small nets sold at pet shops specifically designed for harvesting brine shrimp- maybe this is an idea?
 
I have a brine shrimp net. The problem is not many hatch. Are newly hatched brine shrimp whitish? I have whitish things in the middle of the water but only a few move like live little shrimp and I have quite a few of unhatched eggs on the bottom.
 
Usually too many unhatched eggs is a salinity problem if you have a proper incubation period with enough air flow. What is your salt:water mixture? Newly hatched brine shrimp should be bright orange due to their yoke sac.
 
I used the cc articles recipe for brine shrimp in my mason jars and it worked a lot better. Just for an update i have 6 larvae, 60-80 eggs and the females just keep laying. 2 of the larvae ate for the first time today. I could tell because thier bellies turned orange. How fast do the larvae grow? When will they become to large for daphnia(size and age)? This is all new and very exciting for me!
 
AJ, I am not sure what kind of salt your using but if its table salt or the like it also causes decreased hatch rates. Try switching to aquarium salt if you haven't already and see if that changes you hatch rate.
 
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