Kaiseri breeding condition

RobM · Dec 22, 2010

Davo said:
Temps dropped here and the female stopped laying after the first egg. It was that cold i left the central heating on low all night, when i got up i found the 2 females had layed 20 eggs between them, temp was 60-62 farenheit. They are still laying, i am having a brew and sitting next to there tank, much better than the television! :happy:

Sounds like they were saving them up! Congratulations!

Davo · Jan 8, 2011

First egg has just hatched, eggs seemed larger than the first breeding, not as many infertile eggs this time.
Time to fire up the brine shrimp hatchers!! :happy:

Davo · Jan 9, 2011

Took a few photos of the adults today, not great shots but thought i would share as they are such beautiful newts and you can see the male and females in breeding condition.

RobM · Jan 9, 2011

Nice pics, beautiful newts. What size aquarium are you keeping them in?

Davo · Jan 9, 2011

200ltr, about 40 inches long by 16 inches width, i will raise my larvae in here once the adults finish laying. I am going to get a 100ltr version in the next few weeks and split the larvae into the 2 tanks as they grow. Not told my wife yet! :happy:

FRANCOIS · Jan 9, 2011

Very very well done, congrats. !!!!

RobM · Jan 10, 2011

Davo said:
Not told my wife yet! :happy:

No need, would be wasted words, she'll know when it's there!

How are you going to make sure there is enough to eat in such big tanks? Or are you only going to add fairly mature larvae, so you are able to feed bigger food?

Davo · Jan 10, 2011

I feed little and often several times a day, i put the live brineshrimp on the bottom with a turkey baster, then as the larvae grow i add live food when there is hardly any buzzing about, again little and often and plenty of variation (live bloodworm,live whiteworm, live daphnia, live moinia and live brineshrimp) with plenty of small daily water top ups and a scuzz removal every 3 or 4 days, syphoning of scuzz can be difficult as often small larvae go up the tube but seem ok once they are back in the aquarium!
As i have said before i am not a big fan of frozen bloodworm, i always feed live foods.
I have lots of food cultures, but still got through between £10 and £15 a week on live food for larvae last year.
Lots of people use frozen foods, but just not for me! Maybe in an emergency!

Mark · Feb 10, 2011

My group laid a batch of duds to start with but they seem to be getting their act together now.

RobM · Feb 10, 2011

Mark said:
My group laid a batch of duds to start with but they seem to be getting their act together now.

They laid them altogether like that?

Mark · Feb 10, 2011

RobM said:
They laid them altogether like that?

No, they are laid on the underside of the slate, individually or in small clusters. I carefully scooped them off and whilst they were grouped took a quick photo before placing them in a separate tub.

Davo · Feb 11, 2011

Thats a great photo Mark, you can see the development of the eggs very clear. Good luck raising them up. :happy:

Davo · Mar 9, 2011

Larvae are growing very well, they now have their back legs developing and are taking live bloodworm,daphnia, brineshrimp and whiteworm.
Losses have been minimal so far, they seem to be growing very well,i forgot how much food these greedy munchers can eat.

I try and keep live food available at all times by feeding small amounts 3 times a day, i add 5ltr of aged water a day then every 3 or 4 days i syphon off any scuzz from the bottom of the aquarium removing about 15-20 ltrs of water and scuzz!

Mark · Apr 25, 2011

Due to a 3 week holiday I was forced to abandon my kaiseri larvae/eggs in large aquatic tubs in the garden. These were well stocked with daphnia and pond sweepings. It worked pretty well and I came back to around 70 survivors all with nice orange bellies. I'm very surprised at how slow they grow generally. I had some preemies that didn't start feeding until 6 weeks after they hatched! I was always under the impression this species had a tight window of opportunity to hatch and reach morph size before the water dried up. I suppose it was quite cold in the garden, but still, these guys are slow growers.

Davo · Apr 25, 2011

Thats a great result Mark, a lot of the eggs i gave away were hatched but were lost as the larvae grew. Mine are now changing colour and are 2.5 inches long, they are not at the final colour stage yet more of a mottled greyish black, i think they should change to the full black and white in the next 5 or 6 weeks. They are slow growers yet eat like pigs!

Mark · May 11, 2011

I ended up losing a lot of larvae to some mystery illness, either that or they are very sensitive and I failed somehow in their care. Deaths were greatest after water changes so I've stopped doing them completely. The remaining larvae seem to have stabilised and the survivors are robust looking with well developed back legs. They've moved onto tubifex and larger daphnia. In my experience larvae that start taking aquatic worms grow well and I'm quite pleased with their progress so far.

Here's one wearing a hornwort flower on it's head.

Davo · May 11, 2011

Looking very healthy, i love the colour at this stage. A lot of people who had eggs off me this year had big losses, i had big losses last year, one minute they seem fine the next they just seemed to fade to nothing over night.
Its funny i was looking at the photos of the wild kaiseri that were put out on the other day and it said that they were breeding under a small waterfall, since i changed my set up last year to a large tank with an external filter with a spray bar running the water down the back of the tank my losses have been reduced dramaticly, the adults when breeding and the larvae love to hang out in the water below the spray bar where it is most turbulent and probably more oxygenated.
The first of this years larvae are looking close to coming out of the water, their colours are changing fast to black and white, the orange is starting to show and their feathery gills are shrinking down.

Mark · Jun 2, 2011

Dark pigmentation and nice vertebral stripes have started developing.

Davo · Jun 4, 2011

I think that they do better if you let them stay in the aquatic set up for a few weeks after morphing. They come onto the land at night and go back into the water in the morning and feed with the rest of them, i wait until their colours are fully developed with bright orange stripe,belly and legs. I have had some come on land that are not fully coloured up and they seemed slower to develop than the ones in the aquatc set up.
I have had some that come out of the water and start climbing the glass straight away, these are put into a terrestrial set up, i keep them on the damp side for the first week or two while they are adjusting to the new surrroundings, i lighly spray them daily with water from the aquarium they were reared in.
They seem to take an age to decide to leave the water but it is well worth it when they get their full colours. :happy:

Mark · Jun 7, 2011

That's good morphing information, Martin, thanks. Hopefully these will stay in the water as long as possible. If there's plenty of food available I think some larvae hold out for as long as they can. With many species it seems to be the smaller, weaker ones that morph first, almost in desperation to get to a new feeding opportunity.

I love how the dark pigmentation develops and can't wait to see their full colours. I've been hand feeding them now for a few weeks and they've become more and more aggressive during feeding. Tails are looking a little ragged and I think there'll be missing limbs before long.

I thought I'd removed all the larvae from the tubs outdoors but found another 6 kaiseri last night whilst collecting mosquito larvae

. At least I think they're kaiseri. My larvae rearing this year is a bit of a jumble....

Taken this morning:

Kaiseri breeding condition

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