My young Notophthalmus are growing up...

I love thier fat bellies! How old are they? They look like they will return to the water soon.
 
Thanks, guys :D They're about two years old now.

I'm getting ready to set the two largest efts up in a new place with a water area to see what happens. I will probably find new homes eventually for some of the smaller efts. I was going to do it a lot earlier, but food got scarce and they didn't grow quite as fast as I wanted them tol
 
Just a quick update...

I moved the two largest efts to a new home with a very shallow water area. I'm not really sure how to encourage them to go into the water, so I'll just see what happens. They seem happy there for now and it will also give some of the smaller efts a chance to catch up on growth without the big guys around.

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I had just found this thread, and read through the whole thing in 1 sitting. I wanted to do something like this with the C. orientalis larvae I've been raising, but have no worthy camera. Anyways, hope you keep updating this, you have a new reader.
 
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The adults have finally started laying eggs... very late in the season for them. I have just a few right now. I'm not sure what I'll do if I get more: shipping probably won't be an option in this weather, so they may just have to tough it out in the adults' tank.

Here are some silly pictures I took of Sneaky today. I never really noticed before, but my males definitely have very pronounced eyes compared to the females - more frog-like.

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The eggs are hatching. There are now tons of eggs covering just about every surface of the elodea. I don't think I'll be able to ship any because of the temps here: in the 90s every day now.

I was originally going to move Sneaky into his parents' tank and raise some of the larvae in his old tank. But the adult male is still amplexing everything that moves and I don't want to risk Sneaky getting hurt. So I guess the larvae will have to take their chances in the adults' tank.

Last year, when I did this, I added a bunch of pond water to the tank so the little guys would have something to eat, but I'm getting more and more paranoid about introducing something bad to the tank and losing my adult newts. The other alternative I've been thinking about is raising the larvae in an outside aquarium where I can grow pond organisms more easily.

I just know I'm not going to have a lot of time in the upcoming months to really work with these guys :(
 
I think this is my favorite thread on caudata.org, absolutely love the updates. I left my Noto eggs in with the adults and one of the females (who did not lay) ate nearly all of the eggs and then picked off the dozen or so larvae one by one over the course of a few weeks. The only one that made it bigger than about 1/2" ended up having a crooked spine so I ended up euthanizing it :(. Kind of a heart breaking year for my group, its nice to see someone else's success! Best of luck to this years eggs! I think the outdoor pond would be a good way to get them a lot of food to eat with the least amount of effort on your part, just beware of dragonfly larvae! A medium sized tank in a shady spot outside with some water hyacinth would probably work too.
 
Long overdue update time:

None of the eggs/larvae from this past winter survived :( Sneaky was moved successfully to his parents' tank. He's now 'one of the gang' - begging for food and snapping at anything that moves just like the other adults.

I have only 8 efts now: I lost another one in August. The remaining efts are looking good and eating well. I think I will definitely try to ship some out when the temps cool off. I just don't have enough time to devote to them anymore.

Also, if anyone has any tips for how to get these guys to go aquatic, I'm willing to try anything.
 
I love the fact that after more than two years you are still updating us.
 
Hey, newts take a long time to mature ;) I'm not really surprised that more people don't breed them for fun.
 
I've found that offering live blackworms in the water can encourage the efts to take a swim. I've also had some efts that just walked right in when they were ready on their own terms!
 
Thanks for the advice!

I've actually noticed them going in and out of the water, but I think with the way I have it set up right now the water section is actually too small to make a difference. It's more like walking through a puddle. I might have to rearrange their area again to give them more of a water feature. Of course, I don't want them to drown either...
 
I have bred these guys for 2 generations now and raised the efts aquatically without any problems.
 
Love the new setup for the soon-to-be adults! I need to make a similar one for mine as right now they only have a water dish. How do you keep the water clean?
 
Denikar said:
Love the new setup for the soon-to-be adults! I need to make a similar one for mine as right now they only have a water dish. How do you keep the water clean?
Click to expand...

Thanks! Though I have to admit I changed it a few months ago. I now have all of the efts in a 10 gallon:

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If you can spot the two efts in the 2nd pic, you've got good eyes!

My earthworm colony collapsed, so I'm feeding these guys frozen bloodworms, blackworms and crickets now. It's not ideal, but I haven't had the time to get the worms going again.
 
Hi. Thats a nice looking tank. I've got a similar on that does not have any newts in it and I am going get some soon. You can see it in my albums. Would this work for them? Thanks
 
Alex the adults of this species are fully aquatic and the juvies are terrestrial, the only reason that they're in this cage is because they're in the middle of the terrestrial and aquatic phase. A land area would be useless to adult notos, and a water area would be useless to a juvie noto
 
Yes, this won't be a permanent home for them. I'm just trying to get them to transition into aquatic adults.
 
Bump time because one of the efts has decided to become aquatic. Finally! It's one of my smaller efts and definitely a male - I caught him tail fanning to himself. He spent a few days hanging out on the shoreline and then just took to the water overnight. Now he spends all of his time there.
 
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  • Shane douglas:
    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
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  • Thorninmyside:
    Not necessarily but if you’re wanting to continue to grow your breeding capacity then yes. Breeding axolotls isn’t a cheap hobby nor is it a get rich quick scheme. It costs a lot of money and time and deditcation
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    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
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  • Clareclare:
    Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus Japanese . I'm raising them and have abandoned the terrarium at about 5 months old and switched to the aquatic setups you describe. I'm wondering if I could do this as soon as they morph?
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