Participants needed for N. kaiseri Breeding experiment!

I am in need of volunteers to participate in an experiment.

The purpose is to collect and quantify data on the temperature range needed to invoke breeding in Neurergus kaiseri.

It is required that you have or have access to at least one sexed pair and the equipment to record metric temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure within two meters of the enclosure.

If possible, data from the wild is welcome too!

Professionals and hobbyists alike are encouraged to participate.

The more sample data is available, the more accurate results will be.

Please spread the word and contact me via pm for details and data forms.

Honestly, in my experience, kaiseri are no harder to breed than Triturus. Mine breed w/out trying.
First breeding season I was super cautious, had flowing water in the tank like Allan recommended, hibernated the trio in the fridge at 43 F for 3 months and introduced them to the tank when the water temp was 45 F.
This year I put them in the garage for a month in march when it got no colder than 50 F, I thought for sure that it was not cold enough or long enough period. I also changed the filtration to sponge filters, so there was no current. I still got a tank full of larvae. Maybe it`s just dumb luck or I just have a frisky trio.

cg said:

Honestly, in my experience, kaiseri are no harder to breed than Triturus. Mine breed w/out trying.
First breeding season I was super cautious, had flowing water in the tank like Allan recommended, hibernated the trio in the fridge at 43 F for 3 months and introduced them to the tank when the water temp was 45 F.
This year I put them in the garage for a month in march when it got no colder than 50 F, I thought for sure that it was not cold enough or long enough period. I also changed the filtration to sponge filters, so there was no current. I still got a tank full of larvae. Maybe it`s just dumb luck or I just have a frisky trio.

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Hence the experiment. I pulled it off at right after opening the shipping box. Was it the environment in my critter room, or the low temperatures they were exposed to during shipping? In your case, was it the month in the garage or the the length of time and temperature they were kept prior to spending a month with your car? Far too many variables there if you ask me.

As of right now, there is no concrete, repetitive proven data on temperatures required. With successful, viable breedings very few if any have taken the time to do a quantitative analysis of the process.

In other words- far too many of us that have successfully bred this species can attribute "dumb luck" (as you put it) as the reason for success, myself included.

It is time that the owners/ breeders of this species pull together and show some hard evidence rather than the all too common claims of "I did it." and " It is easy." Claims are fine and dandy, but cold, hard substantiated fact is what is needed. Given the stigma associated with keeping these animals, it never ceases to amaze me how many folks actually have them, but never admit it let alone trade information on the subject. Personally I find this fact to be as sad as the distinct possibility of the extinction of this species in the wild.

What I offer is simple- the keepers fill in blanks on a simple form each day from the start of the experiment until they have viable eggs that hatch. Then they e-mail the form back to me, I crunch the numbers and then post the results here.

While I have a fairly large number of pairs to work with, as with any data of this type, the larger the number of specimens worked with, the more accurate the results are.

I would love to participate, however I don't believe I can keep temperatures stable enough for long enough, especially with the lower temperatures.

Rob, thats fine. As long as you can record the temperatures, it is all good!

Id love to participate as well, problem is I dont own the newt despite always wanting to.

The problem I see with breeding falls back on cost. If people sold these to other enthusiasts at a lower cost, we could breed more, and study them more. I think this was covered not to long ago in a thread.

*edit - yea I found the thread. Pretty interesting read since it started 1.5 years ago.

I need to log onto this forum more often. Didn't realize you had put the project out there. Hope to participate. We'll see.

Hope this is ok, but I just wanted to add some observations to this thread.
Over a month ago I started adding water to my adult N.Kaiseri tank, even when the water level was over 3 inches deep (7.5cm) they were reluctant to take to the water, I assumed they were having a dip at night, but nothing excessive. After about 2 weeks of gradual increase in water I decided to do a larger increase in water, which brought it to about 7/8 inches deep. I also took away half the tank (the land area they preferred in fact), this encouraged them to take to the water, and for the last two weeks I have not seen them out of the water. After about a week I noticed the female's (at this point I am assuming the other is a male) cloaca was very pronounced ready for breeding.
This would appear to have been triggered by the actual taking to the water, not emergence of water, or change in temperature as the tank will have been about 18 degrees Celsius before and after the introduction of water.
It could be possible that a change in temperature is more important for the males as a trigger for breeding, or perhaps mine isn't quiet old enough.

Very interesting Rob! I actually experienced the opposite with mine. The males made a bee line for the water. The females didn't trully join them until a temperature drop and an increase in water volume. However this was fast in the order of just a few days. The males.were showing right out of the box. The females took a week or so. Still, it was about two almost three weeks before viable eggs showed up.

I purchased a group of six from Mike at Sand Fire Dragon Ranch about 5 months ago and they have grown very fast. I keep them fully aquatic at room temps and they feed on chopped earth worms.

My question is, will they breed once they reach maturity, or is the cooling-down terresterally a requirement for breeding?

Thanks! Richard in Staten Island.

I don't have this species, but this is a fantastic idea and, when alll the results are together, you should DEFINITELY try to disseminate this information via AmphibianArk and similar organisations so that all the people working with these animals in conservation groups have access to the information. Perhaps, if more information is available on precise details of captive husbandry of this species, it will attract more ex-situ conservation action.

Once again, fantastic - this and all the evidence-based work you have done with this species so far!

Chris

As you have probably read in another thread, my adults have started laying eggs, despite not witnessing tail fanning.

Aquarium tank average temperature was still around 18 degrees Celsius.
Last week we removed a wardrobe that half covered the window, and created a fold-up bed, which has probably doubled the light in the room. In addition to this I added some java moss to the tank, both of these probably exhibited a change in seasons, which I believed could have influenced the breeding and egg laying.

Thanks for all the info folks! This version of the experimentation has sort of fallen through as I found it was. Easier to just get more adult specimens as strange as that sounds.

Bringing my current adults out of aestivation on October first to coincide with ambient lighting, barometric pressure and night time temperature drops.

I feel that the combination of night time temps of 50F and a sudden move to a breeding tank with gradually increased water levels is the key. Going to be a squeeze ae there are still a ton of larvae here using up my breeding tanks. Time to invest more money methinks.