karelinii mohawk!

[eldaldo]

well, I brought my karelinii to my apartment yesterday, and while a few days ago I was comlpaining about the heat it has turned pretty cold this weekend. This combined with the window fan blowing over my tank has lowered the temperature of the water from about 70 to the low 60's. I noticed this morning that my lone male has grown a noticeable crest of about 2mm from the barely discernable ridge of two days ago. I find this very interesting and was wondering if others have noticed such a swift growth of crests due to temperature changes like this? I am going to monitor this. It would be surprising if he and the females went into breeding this fall. They are not even a year old yet. I need to get a camera.

 

[Kaysie]

Showin' off his manliness

Mine grew his crest over a few days. It was pretty quick.

 

[Azhael]

Same is happening to my dobrogicus. They are developing very nice colours real fast, although the crest seems to vary slightly on height from one day to another it´s still about 1 mm tall. I´ve also seen some short courtship behaviour. They had done it before but i hadn´t seen them doing it for a couple months.
It´s been a crazy summer here..so maybe it´s really affecting the newts. I´m quite happy with it though

 

[AaronK]

My karelinii male is also growing a crest now. Both the male and the female are harder to feed as well. The used to come to the top and eat out tweezers and now they aren't very interested. Is this normal?

 

[eldaldo]

My karelinii actually seemed to feed more when they went into breeding "attire." Perhaps something else has happened that makes them not want to eat? I would say just keep trying at feeding them and make sure nothing is stressing them out. I know temperature has alot to do with the breeding behavior, have there been any drastic temperature changes?

 

[AaronK]

The temp fluctuated from warm to cool before he began to grow his crest. Now the temp is between 66-68 but I have added a small florescent light above the tank and they may see their reflection it the glass. They seem ok though. Check out the pics.

 

[eldaldo]

Those are some beautiful newts. I love karelinii. if he continues growing his mohawk I estimate it will get three times that size. Hopefully you'll get some eggs too. I recently got my first hatches from my eggs.

 

[AaronK]

What would stop his mohawk from growing? The growth rate has slowed down a lot.

 

[Kaysie]

Mine had a 'baseline mohawk' for a long time. I assumed this was natural for males to have a little ridge all the time. Maybe they develop it when they come into sexual maturity.

 

[eldaldo]

I don't have an answer for your first question, but I can tell you how to accelerate his crest growth.
Keep him at the temperature he is at (or maybe a few degrees lower) for maybe a month and then raise the temp to 70-72.

I kept my newts in a cool basement for two months this summer since the house didn't have an air conditioning. I didn't have a thermometer, but I imagine that it wasn't any cooler than the tempereature you have him at now. Then I moved into my apartment for the school year which was pretty hot (72-80)(don't worry it has cooled down here since then), and he grew his crest in a week and a week or so later I had eggs. It is actually receeding now since the temperature has cooled.

I don't know how old your newts are, but mine are only a year old. This is also my first experience with karelinii breeding, so I am not sure if this works every time. But, I was personally surprised they bred because of how young they were and how little below room temperature they had to be kept to simulate the "wintering" period. I have heard other people say that all you need to do is leave them by an open window for a few weeks in the winter and they will breed. I can tell you from my experience that they are an excellent newt for first-time breeders, because thats what I am.