Popei made chillins <IMG SRC="http://www.caudata.org/forum/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0>

[aaron]

So, the other day, I saw my large female C. e. popei eat an egg.

I was very disapointed, but when I did a water change today, I stirred up a 1.2 cm larvae. I quickly snatched it and put it in a deli cup, along with another egg I found. So far, this has been a very enjoyable breeding season.

~Aaron

 

[erik]

Nice work. It's fun to watch the eggs develop and hatch but I always love it when I find larvae in the tank, having missed the eggs completely. Used to happen alot when I was keeping orientalis. Always a nice suprise.

 

[aaron]

Yea, I had a similar experience last year with my pyrrhogaster, except I had already started taking eggs out of the tank. I found a 2-3cm larvae in there

. My ultimate goal for my collection is to get enough plant cover in the tanks and keep the population density low enough to allow the eggs to hatch, the larvae to survive and morph. Then I could just pull out the morphs

.

~Aaron

 

[jennifer]

Aaron, you can probably get morphs that way without effort. The only problem I see is that they might not get as much to eat. So you may end up with much smaller morphs than you would if you raised them separately. Smaller morphs means more hassle during the pain-in-the-rear terrestrial juvenile period.

 

[leonardo]

you're raight jen...but newly morphed Cynops ensicauda popei often stay in the water without terrestrial-period...my juveniles have never been on land, for exemple!
bye
Leo

 

[aaron]

Jen, I know they all wouldn't live, but I have tons of small aquatic bugs in my tanks that the survivers could feed on until morphing. I will have to see how it goes once my saggitaria really takes off.

~Aaron

 

[aaron]

Just an update here. I now have about 10 eggs developing in a separate container and 5 larvae growing rapidly. I've been getting 1 or 2 eggs a day lately.

~Aaron