Skdecoteau
Member
Good Morning,
The short: Is it normal for (aquatic or semi aquatic) salamander or newt** eggs to hatch days apart from one another? And is it normal for a single egg to separate from the rest of the egg sac before hatching?
The long: This has happened 3x now. The first egg separated on Tuesday (May 3) and hatched sometime early on Thursday morning. The larva seems to be growing and otherwise okay.
Then, nothing from the rest of the eggs until yesterday, when another one separated and hatched but the larva died because it was underdeveloped (no tail).
Then, a third one hatched sometime last night and it seems healthy and fully developed (as far as I can tell anyway), and another egg with what looks like a fully developed larva has separated but not yet hatched.
The rest of the eggs look like they're in various states of development.
The eggs are in a shallow water tank in a place that gets filtered sunlight at various points throughout the day, but never gets too hot. I do not have any kind of filter or aeration going but I have been doing partial water changes every so often using bottled spring water.
I did start out by preparing the water the same way I prep it for a regular aquarium, using dechlorination drops, but then I read that those are bad news for salamanders, so I switched to the bottled water instead. I hope I didn't mess up by doing that.
Anyway, thoughts or comments from your own experiences would be greatly appreciated.
**I'm not positive on the id - I *think* they're eastern newt? - and none of the pics I've taken are clear enough to bother with posting. I will try to get some better pics up in a separate thread, though, so that other people can benefit from the id as well.
The short: Is it normal for (aquatic or semi aquatic) salamander or newt** eggs to hatch days apart from one another? And is it normal for a single egg to separate from the rest of the egg sac before hatching?
The long: This has happened 3x now. The first egg separated on Tuesday (May 3) and hatched sometime early on Thursday morning. The larva seems to be growing and otherwise okay.
Then, nothing from the rest of the eggs until yesterday, when another one separated and hatched but the larva died because it was underdeveloped (no tail).
Then, a third one hatched sometime last night and it seems healthy and fully developed (as far as I can tell anyway), and another egg with what looks like a fully developed larva has separated but not yet hatched.
The rest of the eggs look like they're in various states of development.
The eggs are in a shallow water tank in a place that gets filtered sunlight at various points throughout the day, but never gets too hot. I do not have any kind of filter or aeration going but I have been doing partial water changes every so often using bottled spring water.
I did start out by preparing the water the same way I prep it for a regular aquarium, using dechlorination drops, but then I read that those are bad news for salamanders, so I switched to the bottled water instead. I hope I didn't mess up by doing that.
Anyway, thoughts or comments from your own experiences would be greatly appreciated.
**I'm not positive on the id - I *think* they're eastern newt? - and none of the pics I've taken are clear enough to bother with posting. I will try to get some better pics up in a separate thread, though, so that other people can benefit from the id as well.