Question: Advice on raising larva?

[Lilibugz]

So I’ve had my ribbed newts nearly 2 years now and in the last year they’ve laid eggs a few times and I usually keep some and donated or sold the rest. I try to keep 20-30 at a time because I’m still learning.

Lots of trial and error, unfortunately I’ve lost quite a few larva but I’ve improved! I currently have a few who are starting to lose gills!

That being said I’ve noticed my babies grow a lot slower than average. Additionally I sometimes find larva in the adults tank and remove them and realize the are MUCH larger than the larva I have in tubs. I’m sure there’s a lot of factors contributing to that but it’s still frustrating.

I usually do the tubbing method with 100% water changes daily, and feeding brine shrimp 1-2x a day but I’m considering cycling another tank just to raise larva and see how that goes.

I think having a supply of black worms may help but I live in Tx and can’t find them anywhere but eastern aquatics which would be 70$ just for shipping… if yall think I should just bite the bullet and buy them anyway I will though! Just wanna hear yall thoughts!

Any tips or advice?

 

[minorhero]

Definitely just keep them in a cycled tank. They are likely growing slower due to access to less food. Getting them off brine shrimp should be a priority. Brine shrimp is really on good when they are too small to eat anything else. Pellets and frozen are easy options when blackworms are not available. Consistent and easy access to food and freshwater (once a week large water changes) is all you need. Good luck!

 

[Lilibugz]

Definitely just keep them in a cycled tank. They are likely growing slower due to access to less food. Getting them off brine shrimp should be a priority. Brine shrimp is really on good when they are too small to eat anything else. Pellets and frozen are easy options when blackworms are not available. Consistent and easy access to food and freshwater (once a week large water changes) is all you need. Good luck!

Thank you! I actually called around yesterday and finally found a local place that has blackworms! I’ll go ahead and set up a tank now so it’s nice and established next time I have eggs!

 

[salamanderkeeper]

I'm not an expert but for raising larvae I use a few different livefoods. The brine shrimp are good for small larvae at first. I have some buckets which contain Daphnia Moina but I don't produce enough to keep up so for me this is not used as the primary food source as my rearing technique is not sufficient and needs improvement. These are also very small. I've had better luck with the bigger daphnia "russian red" growing in my buckets. I also use grindal worms which are similar to white worms but smaller. There is something called "bloodworms" that I also harvest but I did not plant them. They showed up in duckweek in the daphnia buckets but there is not enough of them to be a reliable food source it is more used as a treat. Eventually things like white worms can also be added in and you already mentioned blackworms are well known to be a nutritious food source. I try to use several different food types to guard against nutrtitional defiecieny. I have attempted, with surprisingly little success, to harvest mosquito larvae around my property. I have newer found large numbers of egg rafts so while I am using them where possible, it is only to a limited degree. Since I keep my buckets of these things outside, I suppose there is some biosecurity risks. I am not sure I would do it if I had some kind of ultra rare animals and it may be possible to rear most of these things indoors under more controlled conditions but I've not tried it myself. I think my family would draw the line at buckets of green water scattered around the indoors.

 

[Niels D]

Don't do 100% water changes, and certainly not on a daily basis. Keep them in cycled water with lots of Elodea plants and fresh water snails like ramshorn or pond snails. Keep them in tubs/containers near a window, so you don't need lighting for the plants.

If you can catch Daphnia from a reasonably clean source you're in luck. Check for unwanted critters of course (dragonfly larvae are aquatic terminators) Else feed freshly hatched brine shrimp. For small amounts you can use a "hatchery dish", because it's very easy to use.

They're pretty cannibalistic, so keeping them together in large amounts thins the population out in the end. If they get big enough for black worms, you can also try tubifex worms. I get the same results, but the latter is more available here (and cheaper).

Don't raise too much, because you'll end up with lots of animals which you can't sell to potentially good keepers. You can sell them to a pet shop, but this will result in certain death (well most of the time).