Frozen bloodworm for larvae/one for you John?

[morg]

I know that some people use chopped frozen bloodworm for small newt larvae with great success, but I have had no luck trying this.
How do people introduce the frozen bloodworm into the diet?
I feed them microworms-moina, then as they grow daphnia-grindal worms, I have then tried the chopped frozen bloodworms but they are not taken.
They will eat small live bloodworm though.
Any tips, as I cannot always get live.
I am in the UK so cannot get blackworms which I know are used a lot in the USA.

MORG

 

[richardh]

Further to previous message you may use with caution a kitchen baster to remove the uneaten piles of blood worm pulp. It is also important to separate different size larvae and to only keep a few in each container.

You must also check at the latter stages to ensure the whole or chopped bloodworms do not float as these can contain gase/air which may cause floating problems for your larvae. It is likely amongst many larvae that one or two will float-this can be remedied by placing them(and their container) in a fridge for a few hours-check that temperature is not too low-although I'd like to report that once the fridge was accidentally lowered in temperature I 'defrosted' one newt larvae with no ill results that later became the largest and most healthy of this years crop! Some Cynops at least can survive partial freezing as I have found out, but I wouldn't want anyone to repeat this inadvertent experiment.

I have never lost a newt larvae that has been refrigerated!

 

[richardh]

I have bred Cynops orientalis using a mixture of live brine shrimp and defrosted bloodworms. Imitially they will only take the brine shrimps but after a few days they will be big enough to show some interest in very finely chopped blood worm-almost pulped. This must be dropped directly in front of the individual larvae-not on or too far away. About one drop in 3 they will respond by snapping and sucking an amount of water containing the pulped blood worm(use a surgeons scalpel for really fine results)Later they will be big enough to eat portions and toward the end of their larval stage they will be less finicky and eat medium sized whole blood worm(unclumped)You can try at this stage to feed live small whiteworms to induce extra feeding response. Maintain many partial water changes daily (unchlorinated) and ensure bloodworms are defrosted in unchlorinated water.

 

[morg]

Richard
Thank you for your response.
I had been adding the chopped bloodworm in the usual feeding spot, rather than right in front of the larvae as you advise.
I will give that a try when the new batch of newt larvae I am bringing up are slightly more advanced.

MORG

 

[richardh]

Hi! Yes they need to see the pulped bloodworm move in front of them-this may fool them into thinking it is alive. I have also fed my orientalis larvae with defrosted daphnia but they seem less keen. You can try stimulating feeding response in reluctant feeders by moving a fine wire in the small pile of bloodworm pulp or directly under it under the water container if it is transparent. Too much movement will scare them away and too big a pile IE more than 2-3 times the size of each larvae's head will make them move away perhaps due to too much of a change in the water chemistry around them? It can be fairly tediuous initially but eventually they will feed without much help.
Yours, Richard.

 

[chris]

Hi. I have some pachytriton eggs. What is the best way to keep them. I only have about 7or 8 (the female is quite small). I have them in a tank with bare bottom, some weed and a few rocks. The water is about 14oC. Do I need afilter, or will this disturb/suckin the eggs. They were only laid a few days ago and are still completely undeveloped. Also, I have two paramesotriton. They will only feed on small amounts of defrosted bloodworm. They will not even look at erthworms or waxworms. What else can I try (they are in a completely aquatic setup as when I tried them with divider, they never left water even though the langd had plenty of plants/food/hidingplaces)
Chris

 

[admin]

Chris can you please post this as a new topic - don't just tag new subjects on to old ones.