Kweichowensis breeding

Now what I did is I kept my kweichos for 3 months in the cellar (13-16°C) then I kept them for one week in my bedroom (22°C) misting the terrarium every day to increase humidity.
Yesterday I put the two males in the aquarium in my room (22°C) and they were all right. This morning I put the female; she is really plump and full of eggs. The males immediately began tail fanning and one of them clasped her. The problem is while the males have gone completely aquatic and show no sign of stress for being in the water, the female instead floated. Even though there was amplexus I had to remove her to avoid her being drowned by the frisky males.

The question is: does the female need a bit more time to get in breeding condition before being put in the water or am I a bit too anxious and I should put her back in water and let the males do their job?

The pictures are poor but you can still notice the spermatophore in the first picture under the male's cloaca.







Cheers
Francesco

I've reduced water depth from 29 to 18 cm

Congratulations on the breeding activity Francesco! Maybe I did not read your post well enough but did you have them in a terrestrial setup while overwintering? I keep mine in a semi aquatic setup all year so I have never noticed any hesitation to enter the water in the females.
Chip

yep terrestrial with a small dish of water

That is really neat. Congrats!

That's pretty cool.

I recently purchased a pair of T. kweichowensis, both male and female. I am enjoying these newts alot, they've been eating for me and look very healthy. I was wondering how you go-about breeding them? What kind of set up should I put them in? Whatever info you can give me about breeding this species would be great. Thanks

Great news Francesco! I hope they do well for you.

DosJax,
I have a group from the imports that came in three years ago. For the first two years they were kept in a 50 gal breeder tank with a half land, half water design. Although they did very well in this setup I never got any breeding out of them. Last year I had to move so they were (and still are_ temporarily housed at a friends place. He has kept them in 20 gal long aquariums (2 tanks with 3 newts in each tank) half filled with water and cork bark floats. They finally bred this year (we have 78-80 morphs/larvae now). I am not sure if they would have bred anyway or if it was the change in enclosure design that did it. The average temperature was very close in both houses so I don't think that was a factor. Ed K once told me that sometimes imported animals may take up to 3 years to become conditioned to breed so who knows. in any case I wish you the best of luck with them.
Chip

Some times you get lucky and the animals aquired from the importers are already cycled and bred for you (but then if you are unlucky they may not breed for you ever again...) but it can take several years for the animals to become acclimated and respond.

Ed

Wow, cool. all of that information is very useful to me. They are very interesting creatures, I'm interested in getting some more (whenever I get the next opportunity). I'm working on a 40 gallon set up right now. I have had some success with my E. e. klauberi and I got a few babies from them.
Well, thanks for all the info.
-DosJax