Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had the damaged spotted sal egg sac that my friend gave to me in tapwater; most of the egg sac disintegrated, spilling out sadly unformed eggs and larvae, which died. The whole sac started turning black, presumably molding, but I did get four perfect little guys out of it.
My questions are
1. How big are spotted sal larvae upon hatching, usually? These guys are barely half an inch.
2. Aany suggestions on feeding? They have so far ignored the blackworms I put in, and I really want these guys to get something in themselves.
Thanks. My friend gave the eggs to me thinking they were frogs' eggs, but I knew better.
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*~Ginevive~*

Give them some time-- they'll eat live blackworms readily.

You need to chop the blackworms into smaller pieces. I put a small puddle of blackworms on a cutting board and use a straight-edge razor blade. Amazingly, the blackworms survive this and continue to wiggle. Or, collect pond critters (daphnia and such). There are some other alternatives, but all are more labor-intensive. See:
http://www.caudata.org/caudatecentral/articles/MACKE2.html

Hey hye,

I have some freshly hatched spotteds that are eating blackworms like crazy. I think it could be the egg sacks haven't been used up yet so they're not hunting for food.

I also have tried not cutting up the blackworms, allowing the larva to bite at the tails and eat those, providing a constant live food source that keeps for days in the water..weeks possibly. I've had great success with marbled salamander larva, spotted larva and Spanish ribbed newts larva.
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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

>>1. How big are spotted sal larvae upon hatching, usually? These guys are barely half an inch.
>>2. Aany suggestions on feeding? They have so far ignored the blackworms I put in, and I really want these guys to get something in themselves.
>>Thanks. My friend gave the eggs to me thinking they were frogs' eggs, but I knew better.
>>-----
>>*~Ginevive~*

That's about on target for size. Blackworms are bit advanced for newly hatched spotted sallies. You need to wait a month before giving them that food item unless you want to mess around with chopping them up into small bits.

I use live tubifex worms as my staple. I also have a nice wetland swamp where I go out once a week and strain for aquatic inverts such as daphnia, cyclops/copepods, etc. Tetra has a brand of fish food called "Nature's Delica"...one of the varieties is Whole waterfleas (ie daphnia). It is daphnia in a gel-based suspension. While the spotteds may not find it appealing since the fleas are not living and moving around, I have used it when I run out of live foods...gets them through a day or two until I get out to the swamp again.

If you think feeding newly hatched spotteds is a pain...my eastern red-spotted newts just hatched...they are barely 1/8"...really hard to see.

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Wyvern