Raising metamorphs aquatic is the new way :P

No, Chris, please don´t hit me! Please!
I keep my juvies and larvae without a light, they just get indirect light from a nearby tank, and i think that basically has the same effect as having cover for them to hide and feel secure. The two morphs show no signs of stress and are really rather bold for such young animals (specially considering these having been trained with hours of sweat and blood like previous generations).

I´m buying frozen Daphnia tomorrow! Back in Salamanca, the shop where i buy my stuff almost never has anything other than bloodworms and their prices are preposterous anyway. I´ll grab the opportunity to buy more varied stuff here at another shop and at much more reasonable prices. With any luck they´ll also have frozen gammarus which i´ve been after for a long time.

I´m definitely keeping an eye out for possible signs of stress or other possible concerns, but so far so good! Micronewt was happily munching on frozen bloodworms yesterday.
If all the juveniles adapt to this lifestyle well, i don´t think it´s necessarily a cause for captive adaptation since there would be no selection, UNLESS it has an epigenetic effect (which could be the case). I think it´s more likely that this is just a normal part of the physiological plasticity of these animals, after all, if at any point they are put on land, they´ll just shed and adapt the physiology of their skin like it´s nothing.
As you say, though, "not that any long-term CB populations stay the same as wild animals anyway".

Hope you can get the frozen stuff you need!

Selection could happen if certain newts mature faster and become part of the breeding population earlier; slower maturing ones will have fewer breeding cycles during the period that they are kept as adults, or may be given away or eggs from them never kept if they come through later and the breeding population is full.

That said, I don't know how much genetic variation there will be concerning this for selection to work on - most newts seem quite plastic in which environment they grow up in. And there are lots of other things that are selected for/against in captivity that are far more obvious and important.

I woder how orientalis juvies grow up n the wild....they don't do well on soil in captivity...

C

That´s a good point, but if the speculation that fast juvenile development reduces lifespan happens to be true, then the "runts" would have an advantage in the long run, possibly countering any advantage faster growing individuals could have initially. The complexity of such issues is why i prefer to not exert any preferences whatsoever.

As you know, i have had the same experience, soil based housing doesn´t work well and i won´t be using it again...ever. I too would like to know more about the reality of orientalis juveniles in the wild.

And thanx for reminding me that there are such things as frozen Daphnia available I´ll see what tasty things i can buy tomorrow! (the tricky business is going to be transporting the frozen stuff to Salamanca when i go back).

By the way, another orientalis larvae is undergoing metamorphosis. The fun of it is back now that it doesn´t come with a sentence of months of hand-feeding and constant care

Azhael said:

Come to think of it, it´s actually rather unusual that the general view is that this kind of thing is not acceptable or advisable for these genera and many others. I was one of the people that used to find it almost blasphemous xDD I don´t mean to say it was bad advice (the risk of drowning is very real in open water), but it´s been made clear that the terrestrial phase of newts is no dogma.

Click to expand...

I've had a long battle to keep my first terrestrial cynops juv alive for 6 months now. He's small (even permanantly stunted!?) and skinny. Tried all sorts. 6 months on I'm trying this aquatic way to see if it works. He's been in there 2 days now, I think he's eaten a little as he has a more rotund belly but he didn't really eat anyway much anyway so anything is better.

I think perhaps the general information out there should start to point us in this direction a little more. It might sound mean making them stay in water where they don't want to be, but isn't survival better than struggling in the terrestrial phase? Perhaps care sheets for juvs of many species should link to these types of threads to give keepers a choice of how to raise the juvs that is best for them and the juvs!

I wish everyone luck who is trying this for the first time (including me)!

Just thought I'd mention that I used to raise Notophthalmus striatus completely aquatically at my last job, several hundred of them, and they did just fine. The setup was pretty much just water with a ton of java moss and some half pvp pipes with the tops just above water for additional hides. Some of them even stayed paedomorphic which was kind of fun, and reproduced that way but the paedomorphs made up less than 10% of the total individuals. The newts raised aquatically were indistinguishable from the other adults.

I'm curious whether an entirely aquatic life really dampens color. Some breeders may go aquatic because of speed....

This is a great thread

I tried to raise two little juvies terrestrial last winter but was unsucessful...then this spring my two H. orientalis started breeding up a storm. My own baby is due in three weeks so...I dont really want to deal with newt babies too...I tried to purge as many eggs as I could, and still ended up with about 15 larvae, who went to a local pet store I trust...but I still have THREE survivors.

2 of them have now morphed...I'm thinking I'll just leave them in the adult tank to their own devices, as they seem to have done well so far. They morphed at about twice the size as the previous two that I fussed over and fed twice a day.

3 quick questions:
1) My tank is about 8 inches deep...too deep?
2) There is a thick carpet of water lettuce that the lil' guys are hanging out on. Should I make an effort to provide some sort of above-water hide (maybe some paper on top of the lily pads)? or will that discourage their return to the water?
3) Should I tweezer feed while they are out of water or let them get hungry so that they will go back under in search of food?? I really dont know what they have been eating all this time as I haven't made any effort to feed them..the parents get bloodworms every 2-3 days and I've seen the babies taking a munch, but what they ate when newly hatched is a mystery...

Thoughts?

I am getting my first pyrrhogaster and vulgaris morphs now; I am inclined to try raising them aquatic. When I raised the vulgaris parents terrestrially, I did get one animal sick with a presumed nutritional deficiency, but she fully recovered after I turned her aquatic.

Has anyone tried raising vulgaris and pyrrhogaster aquatic?

I´ve raised pyrrhogaster aquatically and they adapt better than H.orientalis. Only very small metamorphs can require some adaptation, otherwise they accept aquatic food readily even if most of the time they are at the surface or even trying to climb the walls. They do really quite well even with deep water as long as they can walk through a maze of plants.

Moinkable, it´s hard to say if the tank is suitable for metamorphs or even if the food you provide is really available to them. Metamorphs are terrible swimmers and will either not venture at all in open areas, or risk drowning. They are more likely to search for food among the water lettuce and refuse to submerge if their skins get a chance to dry.
Depth is not that relevant if a) the entire column of water is chock full of plants and b) oxygen levels are high (which ought to be if point a is achieved).
They probably munched on copepods, ostracods, or other tinny things that have colonized the tank. That won´t serve now, though. Bloodworms alone won´t either. They are a terrible staple that will end up causing severe problems both to your adults and the juvies (specially the juvies as problems will arise quicker). Blackworms, whiteworms, Daphnia, etc, should all be accepted by the juvies. They will take frozen foods but this usually takes some time.

Molch said:

Has anyone tried raising vulgaris and pyrrhogaster aquatic?

Click to expand...

I've tried raising vulgaris aquatically- I had no success at all. I find both adult and juvenile vulgaris to be among the least aquatic newts I have ever kept. Their skin rapidly becomes dry (almost overnight) and they just will not re-enter the water.

I know other people have raised them aquatically- there may be differences across their range (some of the southern subspecies are certainly said to be more aquatic than v. vulgaris)- all of mine were from England.

In the wild, there are apparently some adults that enter the water in autumn and stay until the breeding season- but they all (with very few exceptions) leave the water in the summer.


I'm raising pyrrhogaster aquatically at the moment (from Azhael's stock), and they're doing very well (touch wood). They're in small plastic containers with about 7cm water, 5cm air, and a mesh lid- they've stayed in there since they were larvae. There are quite a lot of plants (mostly Elodea), but it's not jammed full. A couple aren't yet feeding well, and are being tweezer fed with whiteworms, but the rest are feeding for themselves in the water.

Thanks for the insight Rodrigo! I think I might take them out and give them their own space, a little shallower but still with lots of lettuce/anubias and what not. Im kinda scared to take them out of my tank since they have been doing so well in there and my last two didn't make it...but i think if i do the aquatic setup then maybe i'll get luckier this time. I've seen both little guys spending some time in the water, like hanging face down off the lettuce or clinging to the glass half in/half out so that's encouraging.

I've raised my CFB Newts aquatically for 3 seasons now, I use plastic tubs, loads of weeds and tiny filters with the flow going up so there is hardly any flow in the water. The only thing I would add is I start them off in about 2 inches of water and increase it as they grow to about a foot in depth.

Dave

I've raised H.orientalis fully aquatic and in a tank with water with a terrestrial area made out of a gravel heap. To my surprise the ones raised with a terrestrial area grew faster. Offered them tubifex/bloodworms on paper towels every day with carotenoid supplement.

Rodrigo, what type of plants do you recommend for this method? I've got a handful of H. orientalis larvae, and about 10 H. cyanurus eggs developing nicely and would like to try this method on the orientalis and at least some of the cyanurus. I'm planning on using what I have had experience with, that is, Java Moss and Elodea. But I also have Ricia fluitans written down on a post-it note, likely from browsing this forum. Will these 3 plants produce an ideal environment for aquatic rearing? Any other suggestions? Any plant I should avoid?

can you post a picture on your newt eft tank? i would like to see how its setup thanks!