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Hongkongensis eggs question

Greewok

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I came home from work today and noticed one of my females hanging on to a piece of elodea like she was going for ride. I didn't think much of this at first since they like to hang on and around it. When I went to feed them, something caught my eye on one of the branches. It appeared to be an egg, upon further snooping around, I managed to find seven more what I think are eggs. What's throwing me off is the size of these eggs, I thought they would be larger. They look to be in the 3-4mm range or so. Also, the yoke is multicolored with 3/4 of it dark brown and the other 1/4 white. From what pictures I have found on the eggs, most peoples Hongkongensis eggs are all white? Is it possible that my female is holding on to them too long and they are a little bit more developed, or are they duds? I will try to snap a photo this weekend.
 

Jennewt

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Congratulations, you have newt eggs! When they are first laid, the egg will have a dark side and a light side. After the first day or two of development, they will look more uniformly off-white, as the single egg becomes many cells.

See:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/series_Phk.shtml
 

Greewok

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Just a small update, the female still has been laying eggs since last Thursday. I would say there is another 30 in with the parents. I pulled 12 out originally from the tank. It's hard to get a good look at the eggs I pulled out as they are wrapped up pretty well. From what I can tell so far the eggs are starting to take on an oval shape and are becoming a solid color. Hopefully in a few days I will know for sure if they are fertile or not.
 

Greewok

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They are fertile, going to pull some more from the parents tank and separate them.
 

John

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Congratulations, well done.
 

louise

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Great job! Your females should continue laying over the next couple of weeks.
 

froggy

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Nice work. Make sure the water quality is kept good throughout development to prevent premature hatching.
 

Jennewt

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Excellent news, and thanks for the video. Are these newts recently acquired? If you've had them for a while, do you have any breeding tips?
 

Jake

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That's great news! I loved your video, good luck raising hoards of hongkong babies;)
 

troutnerd

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I walked into my study yesterday and saw my female hongkongensis laying on her side on bottom.I flipped out and thought she was dead,but when I looked closer,I could see she was locked onto to some floating weed(don't know what kind) and was doing what can only be described as a humping motion. Laying eggs!

My hongkongensis apparently laid eggs sometime last winter as well..but I only found out when I discovered two tiny juves in the tank. They didn't survive, sadly, but I'm hoping I'll have better luck this time. I too could barely see the eggs and was surprised they were so small. I see about a dozen so far. The female is huge,at least 6 inches,and she must be loaded with eggs.She seems to be most actively laying at night.

I've done nothing out of the ordinary,but did do a massive water change/filter cleaning last week, which may have helped. The male has been in spawning condition for a month and was being very aggressive towards her. He is not aggressive most of the year.

I'll attach a pic of the big girl I took today.

GE
 

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Jennewt

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Congratulations, Gord! That's wonderful news.
 

froggy

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fantastic! I remeber a few years ago, on this site, when breeding this species was pretty much unheard of. Well done!
 

troutnerd

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The egg laying continues.She's having trouble with cabomba..but is trying like heck! Looks like a couple dozen eggs.Fingers crossed.
 

Greewok

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Update...

I found 3 or 4 of them last night floating at the surface. Looking closely at them, their gills have shrunk a lot. I added a few branches and bigger pieces of wood breaking the surface before going to bed. When I woke this morning, they were out of the water crawling around, much to my surprise!

Now the fun begins :eek:
 
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