New addition....

[rowangolightly]

...to the family.

We now have a salamander in the aquarium. Bruce found the poor little fella damnear dead of the cold outside our back door a couple days ago. So he picked him up and put him in the tank and then put a stick in for the guy to climb on to be out of the water. He was solid muddy brown at first and pretty skinny but now has kinda a speckled-mottled rock-like coloring to his skin.

Anybody have any idea what this fella might like to eat? I've put fish food in there but somehow I don't think that's quite his cup of tea. And Wikipedia is not at all helpful in this subject.

Comments

[ladyh.livejournal.com]

bugs?

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

gerk...that's what I'm afraid of and I *really* DO NOT want to catch bugs to put in the aquarium!

I may try little guppies since we're pretty sure he's a carnavore.

[eacole72.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking back to when my dad kept a few when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember him putting lettuce leaves out for them.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we did that when we briefly had them in a cage...but he's in an aquarium and I really think he's probably a carnivore.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

Read this (http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/Amphibiary/frogfood1.html)


D.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Hey, cool! You know...much as I loathe and detest slugs, the idea of feeding them to this little fella might actually be a nice variation to salting them as I've been doing.

And roly-polys! That could be a problem this time of year, but guppies are easy.

Thanks!

[fiddledragon]

http://www.anapsid.org/sallies.html

[fiddledragon]

I was about to say that I wouldn't feed it food from outside...but you guys found it outside...*chuckle*.

Do you have other fish/animals in your aquarium? If so, then I probably owuldn't continue to feed wild food to the salamander because of potential toxins in the outside environment. That being said most petstores do sell frozen bloodworms (are nicely non-grody to feed). Otherwise, mealworms aren't too bad as insects go - you don't have to touch them - tweezers work great, and you put them in a little dish (so they don't burrow into whatever substrate you have).

The link I sent mentioned dipping prey in vitamins 2-3 times per week during the winter months - vitamins come in powder form. We have a ziplock baggie with vitamins set aside for feeding crickets to Lizzie (Beena's lizard) - so we drop her crickets in there, shake for a few seconds, then send the crickets off to the lizard in her tank.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

After all this, I think we've at least found out what genus he is. http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/pleglut.htm

But after discussion, I think we're going to put him back outside....I've got this whole aversion to taking a wild creature and penning it up thing. And then there's the 'we need one more thing to do like a hole in the head!'

But thanks muchly for the valuable advice...I guess I'm just not a non-fuzzy critter person.

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

How do you know it's a salamander and not a lizard?
Got a pic?

" Related to frogs and toads, salamanders belong to the family group of amphibians. Like their hopping relatives, salamanders have moist, scale-less skin. This specific physical feature marks the biggest difference between amphibians and reptiles. Reptiles that include lizards, crocodiles, turtles, and snakes have dry, tough, scaled skins."

Yep.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/pleglut.htm

Re: Yep.

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

Well, Owl B!

Re: Yep.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

He looks just like the third image down, with a very hefty tail and a small head with all the gray splotches.

And this evening he's going out to the pond to live. I think that's best for everybody.

[youngraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I would drain the aquarium a bit and add a rock to it. Amphibians prefer a space out of the water as well as in it. I'd a newt commit suicide on me once. He was living with fish, and I don't think he got enough time out of the water. His name was Schuyler. He was alright.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was already thinking of doing that...but I'm really thinking after a little research that the best place for him is back outside.

At least we saved him from freezing when it was cold....and it's spozed to get back up to the mid-60's today.

[youngraven.livejournal.com]

Also, I fed Schuyler worms that had been freeze dried into cubes. I don't think this is the same stuff, but it might be close.

http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023694&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302030085&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441777144&bmUID=1135705347641&itemNo=0&Ntt=newt&In=All&previousText=newt&N=2

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

All valuable info, thanks muchly! I think the thing of the most value that I've figured out is that I'm not cut out to be a amphibian-mommy...nope, not me. It's a good think to know about oneself!

[elisedevescy.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what a salamander would eat. My personal experience with salamander consists of the time Matt caught a "wizard" at daycare and insisted on bringing it home to release into the back yard to live under the house with the turtle.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

*lol* I'm sure they cohabitated wonderfully!

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

Make sure you DON'T use the instructions from the Harry Potter books - different kind of salamanders.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

*LOL* Good point!

[aurorasong.livejournal.com]

I had a salamander when I was a kid. I fed mine earthworms. When it got to be winter (as it will in Minnesota) I dug up a bunch of worms and kept them in a big bucket of dirt in the root cellar. The salamander made it through the winter just fine, although it probably would have been just as happy hibernating with the rest of it's kin. They like leaf mulch to burrow under for the cold months.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

He's outside now....seemed very happy to be there. I just felt more and more that an outside creature needed to go back outside. "Finding Nemo" kept coming to mind, of all things!