Cynops orientalis 2011 mass production

Dear all,
I'm sorry for my long absence, but I suppose you will forgive me, because I was terrible busy with my researches.
Still, this year was a good year for my breeding colony of Cynops orientalis. I manage to raise 102 little newts. The sad news is that originally were more than 250, but they died shortly after the metamorphosis.
The strange think was that the newts died on the land, in a huge naturalistic terrarium and with plenty of suitable foods around.... They just did not make it.
So, I decided to keep them aquatic, with tons of java moss and Ricia fluitans, Pistia stratiotis. Doing so, not even one newt died!
I fed them first with Cyclops and then with Artemia salina.
And now you can see the result

WOW O_O
Now that´s a lot of CB H.orientalis.
How big is your original breeding group? And how many eggs would you say you had, roughly?
I´d also be very interested to know how big the juveniles were when you started housing them aquatically if you happen to know. I´ve had success raising them semi-aquatically but i´ve been reticent of housing young juveniles fully aquatic after i lost a subadult to drowning. I find your success quite extraordinary, well done!
Glad to see you back in the forum, but the way.

Hy Azhael,
My breeding group is made up of 13 individuals (five males and eight females). I estimate the total number of eggs to 300, but I'm probably wrong...
After the failure with the terrestrial setup, I decided to leave the larvae in the two tanks where the eggs were laid.
So, the 102 juveniles never put the legs on land.
I suppose, the huge amount of moss, Pistia and Ricia play a major role in this.

Nice! My juveniles did well on land, but some drown in water (however those must be accidents as I saw them many times swimming around). Also, I couldn't fed them with live Cyclops as every year I tried mass extinction started just exactly after I fed the larvae with them. It usually happened at winter, but spring Cyclops amongst Daphnia did not caused problem.

those are danged cute! Congratulations

Thank you Molch
Azhael, I send a replay immediately after yours but I don't see it. I also put another 3 pictures in it. Do you know what happen?

I can't find words for what I saw and read. Spectacular work, very very well done!! You may have been the best person in the world raising them! All of them look so colourful, chubby and healthy!!! Congratulations for the very good job Tudor;
Jorge

Posts should have appeared now - they needed approving.

This is fantastic! Great job. What are you going to do with all the juveniles? What temperature are the juveniles at in the water, and how deep was the water at metamorphosis? I have some large larvae coming through, but I am now not sure how to house them....

Also, did your terrestrial animals seem to die of anything in particular? How damp was the terrarium and how was it set up? I would like other people who have reared this species terrestrially to compare their terrestrial setups to yours and see if there were any particular differences....

All the best

C

Thanks for appreciations
I will answer to froggy and add some information that most of you may find interested or valuable:
- Except 20 newts (which I want to keep for myself) all will go to Joost. As you know he make efforts in order to eradicate the trade with wild caught animals. This group of newts may help Joost to establish a bigger breeding colony for his massive breed project;
- The temperature in all my tanks are 19 Celsius (the entire newts room - lab- are kept at 18 Celsius, but in the water I always have 19, because of the light equipment);
- The water level are constant 28 cm in the raising tanks and 45 in the adults tank. I never drop the water level;
- My terrestrial newts were kept on soil with living Sphagnum and Selaginella, bark and rocks. The general humidity was around 80%, but they also have a more dry spot. At that time I did not see any health problems, just the fact that each day more and more newts were find dead. The food was around them in big quantity (springtails, enchitreidae, issopode and small detritivourus accarians );
Now couple things about feeding the larvae:
- First I give them Cyclops, like I say, but defrosted ones (!) Alive Cyclops seem to kill the larvae somehow (I still don't know how...yet);
After two weeks i start to give them both Cyclops and Artemia (also defrosted).
Let be clear: I never feed the newts with alive Cyclops and Artemia ! The main reason is the convenience, but also the problem with Cyclops. Is more simple for me to by or collect and freeze big quantities of such food in order to have supply for long period of time. I don't want to say that is better to feed the animals with defrosted food, but for me it works and find that is also more healthy (part of the microscopic parasites - protozoans - probably are killed during the freezing process).
I will try to attache some pictures with blisters of food and with the dead newts.
Sorry for my bad English, I'm in a hurry and must go to a meting

How did you get them so beautifully red?

Thanks for the information. I hope that Joost has some luck with his mass-breeding project.

I have had problems with Cyclops eating larvae, but in Paramesotriton. I think the Cyclops literally bite chunks out of the animals, as I saw some 'bumping' against larvae and then, when I checked them a couple of hours later, the larvae had lost their limbs and gills. Most survived, but I will never use live Cyclops again! I am aware that 'Cyclops' indicates a huge number of taxa, some of which are carnivorous, others of which are not, but the ones that I net always seem to include the carnivorous taxa!

It's very interesting that your animals only do well in the water! I've heard of cases before where they do equally well in both cases, but never where they survive aquatically but not terrestrially!
Do you think that they would adapt to aquatic life at a cooler temp (around 15C)? Did the animals climb the sides at all, or was the transition completely smooth?

Thanks again for all the pictures and information,

C

Thank you for this informative post and congratulations on you breeding success.
Excuse me if this is a stupid question but you mention sphagnum moss in your terrestrial vivarium - isn't sphagnum supposed to be bad because it lowers the pH?

Great achievement Tudor. Verry impressive. Evrry bit of information is verry helpfull. How did you get the adults to breed? You allso have seen how many females had laid eggs?

Hi,
For Niels D :The answer is the food;
Froggy, from what I see, the newts do very well at lower temperature, and I suppose 15 Celsius is OK. The transition from larva to metamorphosed juvenile is not so smooth. Many of the newts spend several days at the surface, in Riccia, but they eat only in water. I always defrost the food with a small amount of water and then spreed this mixture in the tank. Almost immediately, they start to smell around, moving in the direction of the food pieces.
Evut, the answer is no. Sometime, my colleague Dan Cogalniceanu, who is also a professional herpetologist spread some diluted vinegar in his terrestrial setups (he have several species of frogs and newts) in order to keep the pH low. This help in the fight against the fungi and harmful bacteria. Also, if the moos is ok and not decaying, the pH will be around 5.5 or 6, which is just right.
A question: Did you measure the pH in your terrestrial setups? How low is?
For Jeroen: I'm sure, only four females laid eggs.
I did not make special preparations for breeding. It comes naturally after 10 weeks at 5 Celsius in my refrigerator (I put the newts in moos in a shoe box whiteout water, light or food).

Thanks for answering that, Tudor. I've never measured the pH in my terrestrial tank - I'm just avoiding sphagnum moss because it seems to be advised against. I was curious when you mentioned it.

I indeed am planning to breed orientalis on larger scale, to compete the trade in wildcaught animals. I hope I get help with many other breeders world-wide. Soon I shall make another topic about this, and not hijacking this one.

Fantastic work!

I hope you don't mind another few questions! What size of tanks did you use for the larvae and how many were housed in that space? How did you prevent the frozen food contaminating the water? What sort of mechanical or biological filtration are you using and do you have a substrate?

All the best,
Mark

Hi newtboyuk,
and sorry for my late reply.
The adults tanks are 70x60x60 cm. (Length X Depth X Height)
The breeding/raising tanks are 60x40x40 cm (Length X Depth X Height)
In each tank were around 40-50 larvae.
The frozen food does not contaminate the water. Trust me. It was never a problem because of the filtration system, and the snails that I use in the tank (you can use any species that are kept in aquariums, except the Assassin snail Clea helena). The snails take every piece of food remained uneaten by the larvae or young newts.
And by the way, I use sponge filters powered by air.
Sometimes I use substrate (clear quartz gravel with fine granulation), sometimes I don't. With these newts I used both methods (gravel and bare bottom) and I saw now significant differences.
You must take into account the "aging" process in each tank. This means you must use aged tap water and some substrate from an old aquarium or use an already aged sponge filter that is colonized by beneficial bacteria.
One more thing: I forgot to mention that I always use pure water from a reverse osmosis device and aged tap water in equal proportion. The total hardness in Constanta City (Romania) is around 22 DGH and, with the notable exception of Neurergus kaiseri, the rest of the newts prefer a softer water.

Tudor said:

Dan Cogalniceanu, who is also a professional herpetologist spread some diluted vinegar in his terrestrial setups (he have several species of frogs and newts) in order to keep the pH low. This help in the fight against the fungi and harmful bacteria.

Click to expand...

Sulphur has also been used to lower pH in terrestrial setups- if I remember correctly, this was succesfully used to treat and/or prevent fungal infections in Salamandra.

Good work, nice explanation and description about everything.