Surprise! Baby newts.

[onyx]

For about 2 months I've had a couple of Chinese Fire Bellied Newts - obviously a pair because yesterday I discovered about 12 or so babies in my jar of unwanted plants. My plants have been growing so bountifully that I have been keeping a 3 litre jar stuffed with the excess stuff - some also came out of the newt tank. Yesterday I was just about to throw the plants out, but decided to have a forage and see if there was something I might want to keep. Then, surprise, baby "somethings"! I figured they could only be newts or plecos but after I discovered miniscule legs at the front and a "frilly" neck, I knew they were newts. Now what do I do? What do I feed them? How do I look after them? To think I had the plants stuffed into this jar so tight that I used to push down on the mass to make more fit in and probably squashed one or the other egg/baby! What a horrific thought!

 

[jams.alaskan]

Oh my gosh! That is so cool. I hope you find out what their needs are. How cute they must be.

ALASKA

 

[vantgE]

just a guess as i have nevver done this but i would move them away from there parents right away amphibians tend to be canibalistic, are they like tadpoles or what, if they are all i can think of is adding maybe some flake foods and whatever your feeding the adults(EDIT->mush bloodworms mabe) and hope that they find it and eat it,
only if you can't find any other info on this, as it is only a little guess
and some filtration or airpump to keep the water moveing a bit but very little thaey can't be strong swimmers but will breath air through their gills

 

[kristine bean]

maybe they eat the same things fry do? I'll see if I can look anything up or find anyone whose had newt babies before....

 

[onyx]

maybe they eat the same things fry do? I'll see if I can look anything up or find anyone whose had newt babies before....

Thanks Kristine.
I've been searching other websites looking for info. but no luck yet. So far I've just left them in the "excess plant jar" where they were born and haven't done a thing apart from remove a lot of plants so that they have some room. I figured the whole atmosphere in there must be right for them so far, seeing the eggs hatched and they're alive and kicking. But at some point their needs must change seeing they end up being carnivores. Now all they could be eating is decaying leaf matter or algae, even though there's not much of either in there. Also they're so small that I think even tubifex worms would be too big. They don't seem to have grown since I discovered them.

 

[vantgE]

you didn't update but i'll make sure you saw this from the link you posted elsewhere

http/www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtml

thanks for that link

 

[onyx]

Thanks VantgE

I didn't update here because I put up a new post about finding that Caudata site and the answers to my questions (Sorry, my attempt at including the link didn't work).

Best of all, I found out what the eggs look like and how the newts fold up the leaves on a plant after they've laid an egg there. I found several curled up leaves in the newt tank, had a look, and sure enough there were eggs. So in about 14 days or so, I'll have more newt larvae to report!

Oh, what was that about not counting your chickens until they've hatched - I wonder if that also applies to newts?