Rebecca

You might want to post this in the T & E section as there are a lot of people who might be interested but never check this section and it's a great offer. It might be a good idea to let people take just a few eggs to raise, unless they have access to a whole lot of daphnia or brine shrimp they'll be struggling to raise them all. For the first few weeks they'll only eat live food and need a lot of it. Microworms also make a good back up. They're fascinating to watch changing inside the egg, my kids love watching them. It's a great project for a school classroom too.

With my Chinese I wait until they're nice and plump as that means they're feeding well. I have had the odd one or two who didn't handle the transition well and had to baby them along a bit more but mostly they're such little pigs they handle it fine. It's important to make sure that the people who're taking them feed them a similar diet and they should thrive. Congratulations, even though I've been breeding them for years now I still get a kick out of watching them change.

There are more than enough species on the A permit to keep you going for years learning about them. I think it's a good system in that you gain experience before being able to keep the rarer and more delicate species. I have a permit and keep 4 varieties on it and am always learning. Be warned though they are addictive. And I'm fairly sure Tuataras are only available to licensed zoos, education or research facilites being a C category. Rebecca

Well done . I've just had my first baby hatch for this season but mine are the Chinese variety. Lovely to see some being bred in the South Island as there's not many down there. Rebecca

Just out of curiousity is that Odin? Hope so as I bred him and was wondering how he is with his owner in Australia :lol: Did you manage to find another albino for a mate? Would be interested to see how the offspring turn out depending on the parentage.

Welcome, I love your photos. We do have some lovely natives here but a lot different from what you have. It'll be great to have someone with experience in keeping and breeding them and I'm sure you'll be getting hit with a few questions. At least you'll have contact with some fellow enthusiasts before you get here. Rebecca

OMG you cooked the newts I'll bet you felt terrible about that one! Glad the others are doing well anyway. I've got loads of babies at the moment, very cool watching them growing up and the changing. I think it sounds like the ones you've got may be from my lines anyway. Good luck with these ones.

I have to say I've seen one of these guys and it was a bit sad. It spent a lot of time hiding and didn't seem to have much interest in checking out new things in its enclosure, unlike my axies who are very nosy, or just plain greedy If I remember rightly they're much more prone to illness and if limbs are damaged they don't regrow as their regenerative abilities are lost once they change although I'm not 100% sure on that. All in all I think they look much better and happier in the water.

Looking good, are these the young ones that you got off me? If so they're looking great. My spotty one looks a little like the one in the picture but he's a dark brown, not so pale. I've found with the babies that the colour varies on things like how much light the tank's getting, the type of food fed and stress (ie being chased by a bigger, greedy sibling ). I've seen young ones that had been raised on lots of whiteworm and they were very pale in comparison to mine, I advised the owner to put some frozen bloodworm in their diet and they coloured up in a few months so maybe some of it is diet related? Don't really know the answers and suspect there's not many people researching it, maybe google the subject to see if you can get more answers that way, certainly got me thinking now.

Please don't make their tank into that much land. They should be in far more water, they will neither grow well or be as happy if kept in this way. My adults have a large area of water, very little land and are rarely out of the water. When they're just morphed they do spend more time out of the water but they should have it fairly deep with driftwood, rocks and plants to climb out on. I get the artificial floating logs for my wee babies and they all climb out on in when they've morphed. T J Thornton wrote an excellent book on these guys which deals with their needs much better than I can. If you haven't got it then your local pet shop can order it in or I can get you a copy, it really is worthwhile. Alan, your setup sounds great. I found my newts laid eggs at 2 years but there was a much higher fertility rate at 3 years so don't be disappointed if your first year produces lots of eggs and not many babies, persevere as they're amazing to raise. :lol:

I have the Japanese and Chinese varieties, as far as I know these are the only species of newts available in NZ. Would love to hear about others if there are any. Dantezgirl best to give the species name rather than the common for identifying as that way you'll know for sure if they're different. :lol:

I don't know if there are any colour morphs out there. I've had one of my babies this year come through with spots all over so will be keeping it to see if they remain as it gets older. Never had it before and I've had hundreds of babies so it would be exciting. This is in the Chinese variety. Too small to take photos but will definately be taking them later on if the spots stay.

No point asking me as I think they're all cool :oops: Good luck with your permit.

I've found different areas aren't issuing permits any more. I have a friend who fell in love with mine and I told her if she got a permit I'd give her some babies when they were a little older. She rang her regions DOC office and was told they aren't issuing any permits at the moment. I'm not sure why but she was pretty upset, luckily she hadn't built all the cages yet! I have to admit though they aren't very interactive I'm still fascinated by them but they are a long term committment. If you want a really interactive reptile best to get a Bearded dragon, mine are very tame and my 5 and 6 year olds adore them.

Hey Mark So sorry to hear about the Reeves, there really are some low lifes out there. I'll spread the word up here too in case they're from out of the area. Fingers crossed you get her back. Hope the newt's settled in well? Rebecca

Given I'm not a zoo or research centre not a chance 8) But always nice to see our natives on the forum as they don't get much of a mention.

Put me down for a pair or two as well please :lol: I'm guessing they're a C permit if even listed but certainly stunning.

Just wanting to check what needs to be done if you want to be at the auction? I'm coming down on Sunday & hope to hang around for the auction but thought I'd better check if you need to register or anything? All sounds great and really looking forward to Sunday Rebecca

Read this news with great sadness, Alan was a truly special person. When I was faced with losing a family member Alans' emails and caring words meant a lot. My condolences to all his family. He will be sadly missed. Rebecca

Hi everyone, just to let you know our meeting is this Tuesday, 7.30 at the Sunnynook Community Centre. The topic of the meeting is live food for your fish and I'm going to take some samples along of the different food I use for feeding my fish and information sheets on keeping them. I'll have a few cultures to give away and will also take along a few young pairs of Pearl Gouramis as giveaways too. If anyone's interested but has transport issues pm me and I'll see if I can help. We're a small club but very friendly and it's always nice to see new faces. Cheers Rebecca

Hey Sharn Odin is looking fantastic as are all your others. Rebecca

Nice to see someone else from the Shore. I hope you enjoy this site, there's lots of great people and very helpful advice. Rebecca

Love the sound of your set ups! Welcome to the forums, it's a really friendly place and great for getting advice. Rebecca

Thanks for that Alan, the babies are being very well looked after by Mum and Dad and are now eyes and tails :lol: I had thought of putting the parents back into the coomunity tank when the babies are free swimming as they should be able to look after themselves from there I think? I've got lots of live food at the moment as I've been using it for the baby pearl gouramis. These Angels I saw in a petshop under the label Platinums, they're white with a gold or blue tinge on them depending on the light. Does this sound like the fish you're thinking of? They're very striking and it looks like the other 2 I have are pairing up as well

My Platinum Angelfish laid eggs on Sunday night while I was watching them. They laid 2 weeks ago in my community tank and when I moved them ate their eggs of course so I've had them sitting in a tank on their own since then and they've rewarded me by laying again. I've only had these guys 3 weeks so I'm really pleased. At the moment the babies are just eggs with tails but the parents seem to be doing a great job so far. So now I have these, baby pearl gourami, baby guppies, platys and golden axolotls. Life is good :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: