Live foods and C. Orientalis larvae

Hi again,

Sorry to be such a pain, but since I've gotten my black and white worms and have been feeding them to the larvae (and adults), I've begun to wonder if I have to keep feeding more even though I see uneaten and live worms still in the tank? I'm starting to think I could actually go away for a long weekend and not have my mom brought into this world of microfoods for the larvae! Could we actually feed the larvae a little more than usual and miss two days of fresh food - at least with the black worms?

I know I must remove any excess white worms as they do not live indefinitely in water, but the black worms do, so can you skip a day and maybe have the caretaker add more fresh dechlorinated water each day or do some small water changes and not have to deal with handling the worms?

Thanks,
Dana

How old are these juvies? My guess is yes I have read that some breeders do not feed their juvies every day. Someone more experienced will have to chime in though. Keep doing good work...I have been following your juvy raising thread.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. These larvae range from 2.5 months old to newly hatched, and two tanks inbetween that range. I start a new tank every 3 weeks or just over so no one becomes a snack for the older ones. I'm trying to not look for more eggs in w/ the mother, but saw at least two today that I'll likely rescue....but wish I could ignore!

I know many more experienced breeders clean out uneaten food daily, but if it's still alive and wiggling, is that really necessary?

I do think they're all doing well, but I sort of continue to do my mixture of foods, frozen and live, moving more towards the live worms these days because they are here (white and black.) I believe I have a few runts or some others, perhaps (but doubtful), who are super-sized larvae. I know the runts will be a challenge in the future, but for now, they are alive and well.

Dana

Well I wish you the best of luck. Get them big and healthy, so then I can buy a few.....

I'll donate any to a good home! If she continues laying eggs, do you want some of them? I'm reluctant to ship larvae (bad experience w/ Uncle Miltie's Frog Pond tadpole, twice) but I think eggs would be OK to ship out!

Dana

Well i havent had that much time working with C. Orientalis larva but i have experence with spotted salamander larva and u can go up to 5 day without eating

I feed Cynops sp. larvae once a day when the average temperature is 62F or lower. Now that it is a bit warmer here, I feed them twice a day. Average water temp is 66F.

The trick is to keep them stuffed full of foods, like this:

Nice pics!!! What are you stuffing them with?

Johnny,

My larger ones are looking much better since adding the black and white worms. They never looked bad, but they are really growing now and plumper at 2.5 months and 1.5 inches. Do you feed them twice/day even if there is still live food in the tank wiggling around? I don't want to foul the water, but I think you're better about removing uneaten food than I am. It's just kind of hard to remove worms that are obviously still living and edible. Let me know, though. And, if I were to go away for the weekend, would they be OK w/ a bunch of live blackworms in the tank so my mother won't have to deal with worms?

Thanks,
Dana

merk199 said:

Nice pics!!! What are you stuffing them with?

Click to expand...

vistajpdf said:

Johnny,

My larger ones are looking much better since adding the black and white worms. They never looked bad, but they are really growing now and plumper at 2.5 months and 1.5 inches. Do you feed them twice/day even if there is still live food in the tank wiggling around? I don't want to foul the water, but I think you're better about removing uneaten food than I am. It's just kind of hard to remove worms that are obviously still living and edible. Let me know, though. And, if I were to go away for the weekend, would they be OK w/ a bunch of live blackworms in the tank so my mother won't have to deal with worms?

Thanks,
Dana

Click to expand...

Currently, due to my inability to get live blackworms here alive, my little guys are feeding on Hikari brand Frozen Bloodworms, Mysis Shrimp, and Daphnia. I am supplementing their frozen diet with live mosquito and bloodworms when I have time to harvest them. I also have a couple of "experimental" brine shrimp cultures going, which I harvest live adult brineshimp from about once a week.

Truth be told, it appears my batch prefers the frozen bloodworms and frozen daphnia over everything else. However, the mosquito larvae do not last long either...

I ordered the blackworms from the people listed in the "For Sale/Trade" section here. They came from CA for a special price to us members and the 6 oz. will last a LONG time. But, yours seem to be thriving.

So, you remove even live worms with your turkey baster if they've been in there awhile?

Dana

Nope, live foods stay in the tank until they are either eaten (blackworms, daphnia and such) or expire (brine shrimp).

Truth be told, I really have not had an issue with uneaten food as of yet...these little buggers are voracious eaters frozen, live, or otherwise. It may be because of my stocking density, or some other factor I have not figured out yet.

I have found feeding them at night, just after their lights go out prevents a lot of food waste.

As you can see from my pictures around the site of these guys, I do not get too picky about tank cleaning. I have this crazy theory that a slightly dirty tank (that still has good water chemistry) develops better immune systems in the critters. Then again, it may not be a theory at all, it may be I have just come up with a reasonable sounding excuse for being a lazy guy...

OK, got it. I've not been all that diligent about removing food and since it's now mostly live, I won't worry too much. I'm doing partial water changes several times/week but fell off a little this week with so much going on (kids in last week of school, parties at school, baseball winding down, and working!) that I missed a couple of days - added water instead of removing some old water first. I did a test last night and one tank came up horrible on ammonia - I freaked out and retested. Must have added too many drops because it was fine. Still, it scared me and all the changes got done immediately.

My white worms have been living more than a day in water. I can't bring myself to chop any of them or the blackworms...probably I should.

Thanks for all the help,
Dana