Laotriton Aquatic Conditions

What conditions do Laotriton Laoensis need when kept aquatic? What temperature, ph and water current do they need? Are they from clear mountain streams or black water environments?
Regards
Krisztian

Take a look here
AG Urodela

Mine are in a tank with water at around 20 to 22c, water movement is achieved with a fluval 1 filter, since going aquatic they have never been seen out of the water

Thank you! Most people seem to agree on 20-22 degrees temperature wise! Do you by any chance now what their native habitat is like?

There is data on this database: Home - Habidata - its a google spreadhseet. There is data for terrestrial juveniles and for adults in two different entries.

The water seems to be warmer than 20-22 when these data were collected, and often dries up during the cooler, dry season.

C

Thank you on that website it says that there habitat contains no aquatic vegetation but many laotriton keepers say they need plants to lay their eggs on. What do they lay their eggs on in the wild then?

A paper was published on their ecology earlier this year, and one last year. Both are easily found with an online search, and are available free. Recorded water temperatures in the wild range from 13 to 25C, but the coldest season was not recorded. In captivity, they've done well [and come into breeding condition] even when surface icing has occurred.

In the database mentioned above, data for Paramesotriton caudopunctatus are for Paramesotriton wulingensis.

The paper says that eggs are laid on dead leaves that cover the bottom of pools.

FrogEyes said:

A paper was published on their ecology earlier this year, and one last year. Both are easily found with an online search, and are available free. Recorded water temperatures in the wild range from 13 to 25C, but the coldest season was not recorded. In captivity, they've done well [and come into breeding condition] even when surface icing has occurred.

In the database mentioned above, data for Paramesotriton caudopunctatus are for Paramesotriton wulingensis.

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froggy said:

The paper says that eggs are laid on dead leaves that cover the bottom of pools.

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KrisztianNemeth said:

Thank you on that website it says that there habitat contains no aquatic vegetation but many laotriton keepers say they need plants to lay their eggs on. What do they lay their eggs on in the wild then?

Click to expand...

this is out of order but hopefully my reply makes sense.

It is very curious to me that the paper specifically mentions dead leaves on the bottom(if my reading of the papers was correct there was not any eggs found on leaves on the bottom, that was just the hypothesis)

Reason being is that last season i wanted to experiment with different egg laying leaves. I offered a wide range of leaf sizes and shapes both on live plants and cut and just allowed to sit on the bottom. I also included both 1/2 of a plastic spider plant that they had used the year before and some of the spider plant leaves loose on the bottom.
Every egg i had laid was either in the spider plant bundle or on a live plant. the plants on the bottom were completly overlooked. Furthermore they only laid on plants longer than 10 cm and between 1-2.5 cm in width.

salamanderland.at has some pictures of the habitat including this one with ferns and a grass visable

in this picture from the same region i saved from a tourists photo album you can see similar grasses as well.


Plants like those would however likely be broken off from the bank/those islands when the water rises which incidentally seems to be important in females to start laying.

because of all that i dont think dead leaves on the bottom is the correct guess for a laying material in the wild. i think instead it is entire plants with the leaves off the bottom being selected.
I will only be offering the plastic spider plant and the anubis species already in the tank this year for laying.

Frogeyes: I will amend the database, changing P. caudopunctatsu to P. wulingensis. When the data was recorded the new species hadn't been formally described and it was suggested that both species were present there.

NathanKS: your results are interesting! My (vague) memory of the paper was that collected females laid eggs on dead leaves and some eggs were found in situ, but I'll have to check now. It does seem plausible that immersed terrestrial plants might also provide laying sites. Perhaps females prefer these, but they are scarce and so have to use dead leaves instead.

Either way, I don't think they can be too fussy if they will use plastic plants!

C

If there´s any fussiness it might be related to the stability of the substrate. Single leaves at the bottom are likely to be carried away by the current sooner or later, whereas larger portions of plants may well stick around. Also, females probably need the laying substrate to offer some support while they are laying and single leaves offer none.
It´s all speculation, obviously, but seems reasonable doesn´t it? xD

Their habitat is very unusual for a caudate species I haven't seen anything else live in that sort of an environment. Thanks for the help guys!