Kweichowensis Eggs

F

foster

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I do not have time to go into any detail right now and I realize that they may not even be fertile but at least I got a batch. I'll post details (and questions) later.
Chip
 
Good going, Foster!
Look forward to hearing about it. I must say,i'm surprised....i only hear of Tylos breeding between May and August as a rule....but fingers crossed for you!
 
Thanks Andy. To make a long story short my kweichows have not even been in my care since October. They are being looked after by an aquarist friend until my living situation is squared away (first I moved and now I am having some major home improvement and remodeling done). Before the move I kept the group of six in a 50 gal breeder tank with an approximate 50/50 land water area. My friend split them up into two groups of three in two separate 20 gal long tanks, 3/4 full of water with floating cork bark. He noticed the eggs this past Saturday (app 30 total). I went over Sunday to observe them. They all seemed to have debris from the aquarium stuck to them. I talked to him tonight and he said that many of them seem to be developing (he has raised tropical fish for years and he is a retired biology professor so I trust his observations). He moved some of the eggs into a separate tank and kept some in the tank with the adults. Even if nothing else becomes of this at least I can say that I have seen eggs - after three years of keeping them.
Chip
 
Well, Foster...as i say, good luck with them. We could do with more captive breeding of this species.
My group are coming around now after their winter torper. They're looking most fat and ready to breed.
Once they get going Kweichows are pretty prolific breeders. I had three seperate breedings last year and raised around 58 little Kweichowlings.
 
I talked to my friend on the phone again today and he said that there are around 75 eggs now with many of them jerking around. He added that he can see the gills developing on many of the embryos.
Chip
 
Nice to hear that more ppl than andy successfully breeds kweichowensis on these forums. I have a couple of youngsters from Andy's breeding and they seem very tolerant in general. Btw, the small variety of waxworms goes down very well for kweicho metamorphs - easy to culture too...
 
How do you pronounce this: "Kweichowlings"? I am a word person and I'm loving this word. I must have said it to myself 200 times the last couple days, in different ways.

(Message edited by otterwoman on April 08, 2007)
 
lol....i coined the word "Shanjinglings" when refering to T.Shanjing morphs. Kweichowlings doesn't quite have the same ring though.....

Good luck with the eggs Foster
 
Andy,
At approximately what water temperature did you keep your eggs in? Sorry for not searching the archives first but I am in a bit of a hurry today.
Chip
 
Oh, I like that one too! But "Kweichowling" if you pronounce it "kweechaling" is cute because the sounds are funny. It reminds one of "squeak" which is a cute word, and squeaks are made by cute animals.
 
Hi Foster, i kept the eggs in a pretty unusual way.
I had several large plastic critter keeper type things and into these i put a few inches of water. Then, in each one i put a piece of plastic roof guttering pipe with the top out of the water. On top of these i put wet paper towels (bounty kitchen towel). Then onto this permanently wet paper towel i laid the eggs out so they where out of the water but moist enough....plus, i'd spray the eggs a couple of times a day too. I did all this last summer when it was real hot so as you can imagine, the eggs developed really fast. I only put them in water when they were a couple of days from hatching.
I'll try and find a picture in the archives for you later.
All the best....
 
That is an interesting setup. My friend currently has them all in a 10 gal aquarium with a sponge filter. He originally had a heater in the tank and the temps stayed around 72 F. I told him that we could probably take the heater out. He did and now the temp is around 64 F. Do you think that this is warm enough? Also, sorry for not using the metric system (my American upbringing). I'm pretty good at lengths but still have to reference temperatures.
Chip
 
Heres an old thread, Foster
http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/67806.html?1154043869

I used that set up idea because i know that a lot of Tylototritons lay eggs near, but not in the water..ie, on top of water plants around a ponds edge. I've also heard of Tylo eggs going bad when kept in water for a long time, though i don't know for sure if that is true. Of course, they'd would be in the water a long time until hatching at cooler temps so for that reason i'd personally prefer to have them a little warmer...though i wouldn't like to say it's completely necessary...just what my instincts would tell me to do. Also, don't forget that the breeding season in nature for Tylototritons is may to august when the temps are a little higher.

The first few to hatch were put into pretty sterile set ups so i could monitor feeding etc but from this i learned a valuable lesson!...i had loads die!! I find the larvae are pretty easy to raise when placed into naturalistic set ups with rocks, gravel, plenty of plants etc. In fact, i rarely cleaned them out....just added a lot of daphnia for the first 5 or 6 weeks, then blood worms and such.
 
Thanks again for all of the information Andy, it has been a help. I'll keep you posted as to how the eggs develop.
Chip
 
Foster - at what temperatures did your adults breed? I would imagine that that would be the ideal temp for rearing the eggs; as the adults were happy to reproduce the conditions must be similar to those in the wild.
Good luck!
Chris
 
That's a good point Chris. The adults are in unheated tanks in the same room, which I believe my friend says fluctuates in the high 60's-low 70's. This past weekend we had an unseasonable cold snap, with temps going down to the low 20's at night. This I'm sure contributed to the 64 F reading.
Chip
 
I can tell you that the magic temp to get them breeding is usually low to mid 70's....75f..ish
 
Just a quick update. The heater is back in (with the water temperature back in the 70's) and the first egg hatched today. The larvae does not appear to have any limbs (unless they are very small) and just seems to lay on it's side. When touched it wriggles away though. Does this sound normal for a fresh hatchling?
Chip
 
Hi Foster, congratulations to you and your friend!
Yes, they sound perfectly normal. In the link i posted in this thread there are a fair few pictures...some of them are of Kweichowensis larvae in the first few days of hatching.
Keep us posted.
 
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