Breeding mavortium ( breeding tiger salamanders )

Jan · Feb 11, 2008

MAMISAN said:
Hi,jan
In water area, there are a pipe of external filter, a driftwood to bridge tow areas, plastic strips and heater covers to fan out them. Eggs are attached to all of them.
The animals stay continuously in water area until the breeding season ends.

Thank you Mamisan

John · Feb 11, 2008

Wouldn't it be fantastic if all of the adverts in the future for tiger salamanders said C/B ?

Thank you to both Henk and Mr Masai for their willingness to share their experience.

henk_wallays · Feb 11, 2008

Hai , nice to see this story grows as it comes... Overhere I have set some eggs aside. It is quite difficult to tell how many eggs I have since like you tell , they are attached to stones, plants and even floating waterweeds. They specifically seem to like to attach the eggs to the central/middle area of the waterweeds. I think if I would put some flexible plastic cable into the tank that they would use it too. The eggs are quite little, the tanks is quite large and as such it is difficult to count them. So far all my animals - with the exception of one female (which is not breeding , but does certainly have some eggs in her body) - did not show any haste to get out of the water. so they seem to like wandering around in the tank. That one female on the other hand was really wanting to get out of the water and as such I have picked her out and set her bakc onto a land area. I may retry setting her in the water later (within a week or 2). I have actually seen one of the female lay eggs . In fact that female is now 4 years old and itself came from a French captive breeding. so we are at F2 overhere. I still have 2 large larvae of last years breeding now (over 12 cm). I hope to tell in a weke or so if my eggs are fertilised (watertemp is close to 3°C at the moment and development is slow)

Well John, now I'm out going to do sopmething for the weak and get a good night sleep, since tomorrow I'm gonna be quite busy too.

John · Feb 11, 2008

Henk, after you get some sleep, please write an article for the magazine that's coming in June!

henk_wallays said:
Hai , nice to see this story grows as it comes... Overhere I have set some eggs aside. It is quite difficult to tell how many eggs I have since like you tell , they are attached to stones, plants and even floating waterweeds. They specifically seem to like to attach the eggs to the central/middle area of the waterweeds. I think if I would put some flexible plastic cable into the tank that they would use it too. The eggs are quite little, the tanks is quite large and as such it is difficult to count them. So far all my animals - with the exception of one female (which is not breeding , but does certainly have some eggs in her body) - did not show any haste to get out of the water. so they seem to like wandering around in the tank. That one female on the other hand was really wanting to get out of the water and as such I have picked her out and set her bakc onto a land area. I may retry setting her in the water later (within a week or 2). I have actually seen one of the female lay eggs . In fact that female is now 4 years old and itself came from a French captive breeding. so we are at F2 overhere. I still have 2 large larvae of last years breeding now (over 12 cm). I hope to tell in a weke or so if my eggs are fertilised (watertemp is close to 3°C at the moment and development is slow)

Well John, now I'm out going to do sopmething for the weak and get a good night sleep, since tomorrow I'm gonna be quite busy too.

MAMISAN · Feb 12, 2008

John said:
Wouldn't it be fantastic if all of the adverts in the future for tiger salamanders said C/B ?

Yes, it is fantastic. Everybody has a favorite species of their own. Tiger salamander is my favorite one ,as well as you.

Daniel · Feb 12, 2008

henk_wallays said:
Overhere I have set some eggs aside.

Henk - does that mean that you only want to seperate some of the eggs (even if you know that they are fertilized)? What do you do with the rest - let the parents take care of them? I am quite sure that some people over here in Europe (including myself) would be very interested in an attempt to raise some larvae and that might strenghten the c/b basis for this species. At least they take some years to get mature.

As for your egg-laying "substrate": I have some Axolotls that particularly like to attach their eggs to flexible plastic tubes (as connected to airstones) and I have also read reports of people using plastic scourers (don't know if that is the right word - these little wiry plastic "sponges" used for cleaning pans and pots).

I have to admit that I am quite happy to read that there finally are some repeatable breeding successesin different regions of the world for this species (it's one of my personal favourites) so keep up the good work, Mr. Masai & Henk! An article for the magazine would be very interesting to me, too!

MAMISAN · Feb 12, 2008

henk_wallays said:
Hai , nice to see this story grows as it comes... Overhere I have set some eggs aside. It is quite difficult to tell how many eggs I have since like you tell , they are attached to stones, plants and even floating waterweeds. They specifically seem to like to attach the eggs to the central/middle area of the waterweeds. I think if I would put some flexible plastic cable into the tank that they would use it too. The eggs are quite little, the tanks is quite large and as such it is difficult to count them. So far all my animals - with the exception of one female (which is not breeding , but does certainly have some eggs in her body) - did not show any haste to get out of the water. so they seem to like wandering around in the tank. That one female on the other hand was really wanting to get out of the water and as such I have picked her out and set her bakc onto a land area. I may retry setting her in the water later (within a week or 2). I have actually seen one of the female lay eggs . In fact that female is now 4 years old and itself came from a French captive breeding. so we are at F2 overhere. I still have 2 large larvae of last years breeding now (over 12 cm). I hope to tell in a weke or so if my eggs are fertilised (watertemp is close to 3°C at the moment and development is slow)

Thank you very much for your information and experience.
Are 2 large larvae(neoteny) WC or F1(French CB) ? At what °C do you keep them in the summer ?

In my turn, I tell my experience.
After my 2nd WC breeding success, I suffered a catastrophic loss of the WC adults (and many F1 adults). In my next trial, I put one F1 female and two (or three?) F1 males in the bleeding aqua-terrarium in January(or December?). In March, she went into water area and laid eggs. I fed small larvae, but they all died from indigestion due to a cold wave. The cold wave passed away but temperature was low enough for breeding, and then I put another F1 female in the breeding tank. She also went into water area and laid eggs. After that, she stopped laying eggs and went back to land area because of temperature rising, but the temperature fell again, she started laying many eggs again. But this female laid only 40-50 eggs in the next trial.
I have 3 cases of breeding of F1. The points , different from WC breeding, are below.
1. The water temperature at which 3 F1 females entered water area was lower; about 9°C.
2. They entered water area, when it did not rain. Temperature may be a big factor for F1 breeding.

Is my English OK? I am afraid of misunderstanding.

Kaysie · Feb 12, 2008

I feel your English is just fine. This is definitely an exciting topic. Maybe with the advances you gentlemen are making in breeding these species, there will be hope for some of the more rare tiger salamanders, such as the California tiger.

Since A. tigrinum and A. mavortium are essentially the same species, do you think the breeding cues would be the same for each of them?

John · Feb 12, 2008

Kaysie said:
Since A. tigrinum and A. mavortium are essentially the same species, do you think the breeding cues would be the same for each of them?

Wow. Quite the broad, sweeping statement there...

henk_wallays · Feb 12, 2008

Well well , nice to see this post growing and growing with usefull information.

To come to my eggs story. No I intend ot rear as much eggs as possible be sure. I have just taken out some eggs to follow up their evolution a bit closer indoors. The other eggs are still in the garden house in seperate plastic tubs. I try to get out the eggs , but it is not always clear if I succeed doing so. One of the tanks is 150 on 60 cm groundsurface about which half to a third is filled with stones in different layers (underwater) . The other tank effectiovely is an outdoor plastic container of 120 on 120 cm groundsurface with a waterheight of 40 to 50 cm and of which the bottom is well filled with stones too. After having bred in the indoor tank I have taken the animals out of this tank and due to the better weather (much sun) placed them in the outdoor enclosure. Again the eggdeposition started. Watertemperatures are now close to 0°C (there is a slight layer of ice on the surface) but the animals do well and wander around on the surface without wanting to break out.

And eh.. the eggs indoors seem to develop well (14°C) !!

John · Feb 12, 2008

Henk I am curious at what temperature the mating took place (not the spawning)? You should also be aware that sperm can be retained for a very long time (many months) in this species, so a second spawning within a few days by the same female is highly unlikely to indicate a second mating for her.

aliceinwl · Feb 13, 2008

I'm curious if the humidity / rain is more important than temperature for triggering breeding. I have a WC barred salamander from southeastern Arizona. They were introduced there as fish bait, but have adapted to local conditions. They come out to breed with the summer monsoons when humidity is high as are the temperatures. He was found crossing a highway at night in mid-August with an air temperature over 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If cold water and temperatures were essential for breeding, I don't think they would have been able to adapt to a summer rather than winter breeding season.

-Alice

John · Feb 13, 2008

aliceinwl said:
I'm curious if the humidity / rain is more important than temperature for triggering breeding. I have a WC barred salamander from southeastern Arizona. They were introduced there as fish bait, but have adapted to local conditions. They come out to breed with the summer monsoons when humidity is high as are the temperatures. He was found crossing a highway at night in mid-August with an air temperature over 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If cold water and temperatures were essential for breeding, I don't think they would have been able to adapt to a summer rather than winter breeding season.

Well you see that is why I think not all of the animals that are "overwintered" are coming into breeding condition - the preparation is only partly meeting their requirements to trigger breeding.

MAMISAN · Feb 15, 2008

I revise my post (13th February 2008, 00:25) like the below.

area because of temperature rising, but the temperature fell again, she started laying many eggs again. But this female laid only 50-60 eggs in my latest trial.
I have 3 cases of breeding of 2 F1 females. The points , different from WC breeding, are below.
1. The water temperature at which 2 F1 females entered water area was lower; about 9°C.
2. They entered water area, when it did not rain. Temperature may be a big factor for F1 breeding.

Daniel · Mar 3, 2008

I got another report of a captive A. mavortium laying eggs yesterday. This is also a F2 breeding since the parental pair is cb itself.
Unfortunately the person won't tell her story in english but I am gently pushing her to get more information.

henk_wallays · Sep 20, 2008

Although it was a very busy year (loose from the salamanders) I have bred them this year again and still have 18 quite large neotenic larvae which I am rearing at this moment (hope to make some shots on them).
The CB animals of last year remained neotenic for till just last month (when I took them out of the -escape proove- outdoor tank. They had all the right colors but still some gill-buds. Due to this repetitive breeding succes I have also taken over another valid breeding group from someone else..among which 2 quite huuuuge animals and hope that next year we may breed them again.

fishkeeper · Sep 28, 2008

Ok, I find this thread quite interesting in the fact that really nothing that special seems to be required...or otherwise I am missing it.

1. Cold overwintering temps
2. A drop in temperature, or barometric pressure(rain)
3. large tank during breeding season to allow free access to land and water section.
4. and of course, a well established group of mature adults.

I'm willing to bet that F1-F2 animals will become easier and easier to breed. Perhaps some populations are harder than others? Perhaps few keepers ever went through the trouble of attempting to breed them and all assumed they "would not breed in captivity".

All food for thought...and to the breeders, way to go! And keep it up!

John · Sep 28, 2008

I've got my own thoughts on this but since they're in my article I won't discuss them here.

Tim S · Oct 9, 2008

I think there are ethical reasons not to discuss breeding techniques so openly. My main concern is indiscriminant dumping of unwanted amphibians into local ecosystems.

John · Oct 9, 2008

Tim S said:
I think there are ethical reasons not to discuss breeding techniques so openly. My main concern is indiscriminant dumping of unwanted amphibians into local ecosystems.

I don't think that's an issue for caudate enthusiasts. Bass fishermen in the USA maybe, but that's about it.

Breeding mavortium ( breeding tiger salamanders )

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