Baby fire bellied newts help please

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mattbythesea

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Hi all,
I have some baby fire bellied newts about 10-12mm long all have front and back legs, have been eating microworms, but have started to lose some now, any ideas or help very much needed....
Ta
Matt
 
Check the CC articles regarding larvae care/feeding. You can find them in my signature.
 
Thanks,
By the look of it i seem to be doing everything right.
what sort of age before they lose gills?
 
It varies a lot. Anything between 3-6 months is the usual.
Microworms alone are not a suitable diet. I strongly recommend Daphnia.
 
I agree, daphnia, small live bloodworms or whiteworms are more suitable for larger larvae. You are possibly losing some as they cannot get sufficient meals from the microworms.

I switch mine to whiteworm the moment I think they are large enough to eat them. Also whiteworm cultures do contain a variety of sizes of worms so you can try to get some of the smaller worms from the culture for smaller mouths.

Try and obtain an established whiteworm culture or mail order live bloodworms or daphnia and see if they will take them (which they should do really, mail order bloodworm tend to be smaller than the ones sold as frozen food).
 
Whiteworms represent similar issues in terms of nutrition. Daphnia or tinny earthworms would be great to counteract the lack of calcium in the other foods.
 
Frozen bloodworms work as well - they are not perfect but might be easier to obtain and are handy to have in case you can't find small enough earthworms. Defrost a bit of the cube on a piece of tissue first. If the larvae don't show interest by themselves, try wiggling the worms in front of them.
 
If you are only able to get frozen items, try cyclops, available in most pet stores. I have had success raising larvae on cyclops alone. it is rather tedious as they prefer moving items, so you will have mimic this by moving the food item in front of them. Other posts have covered the better choices, such as live daphnia, or perhaps live baby brine shrimp.

Frozen bloodworms tend to be far to big for firebelly larvae.

Hope this helps.
 
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