Any experience with spinners?

[Aquaticjade]

This is the 4th year my Kaisers have breed. Every year the amount of fertile eggs gets higher and higher. This year they bred twice for the first time, typically they only lay eggs once in the winter.

I have two males and two females. The largest batch I had so far was 20 something, 16 making it post morph. They bred again in early fall, which is unusual. For the first time there were at least 50 eggs laid between both females, so a huge jump in numbers. A few eggs were lost to fungus, but the majority hatched just fine in the adult tank.

For the first time I've encountered spinners. There are at least 35-40 larvae in the tank now, and I've culled 13 spinners so far. Since I don't have experience with clutches this large, is that unusual? Is there a reason why there are so many spinners, or does this tend to happen with large clutches like this?

The parent tank is very established with a lot of microfauna to feed, and in the past I've had much higher survival rates when I keep the larvae in the adult tank until they start to develop back legs and can feed on blackworm.

 

[Niels D]

I have no experience with Neurergus, but with Paramesotriton you have some years that you find a lot more spinners/corkscrew spinners than usual. I believe it's a genetic defect or a malfunctioning vestibular system. With Paramesotriton I experienced that sometimes the larvae will straighten out little by little over a long period of time. I haven't seen this happen with other species though.

 

[michael]

How are you raising the larvae? What are you feeding the larvae. My guess would be a nutritional or habitat problem.