Care Sheet for Salamanders, NewtsAverage Rating Given To This Care Sheet Is 5.00 (1=lowest, 5=highest) Last Updated: 02/29/2008 |
Main Category: | Aquatic/Land |
Sub Category: | Salamanders, Newts |
Care Sheet Submitted By: | T-platinum |
Years Experience: | 10 to 15 Years |
Species: | Tiger Salamander |
Other Species or Phases this Care Sheet May Cover: | Ambystoma tigrinum
Ambystoma californiense
Ambystoma macrodactylum |
Sexing and Characteristics: | You can really only sex most salamanders (without prodding of sexual organs) during their breeding season, and even then it proves difficult. What you should be looking for though if its "that time of year" is simple: First flip your salamander onto its back and look towards where the tail and the back legs meet. There should be an opening known as the vent. This is where in males the hemipenis emerges for reproduction. If your animal is a male, there should be a fair bulge around this area, making the tail go from fatty to skinny in a matter of millimeters! |
Mostly Active During: | Both |
Substrate and Water Needs: | Even though A. tigrinum is a salamander, they aren’t super water based. In fact, Ambystoma means "mole salamander" because for much of the year these salamander’s keep themselves burrowed underground in mice dens and other holes, emerging in the months of march to June (changing depending on where you are). Pretty much what I’m saying is that water is great, but in moderation. Purchase a dish that will allow your salamander to submerge itself, but without having to swim to stay wet. Shallow and small. A. tigrinum is a fatty salamander and acts just that way. They are notoriously poor swimmers and need to be able to get in and out of their water dish easily. Make sure there is a slope or some type of a ramp, for easy extraction from the water. As said before, A. tigrinum is not a good swimmer and needs really only to be able to soak itself.
Second, soil. Soil is a big one because as mentioned earlier, Ambystoma means "mole salamander" because they burrow. Keep this in mind when purchasing or making dirt. Make/ buy something that has no toxic additives (like miracle gro potting soil which has fertilizer beads in it). This is because amphibians absorb chemicals around them, whether beneficial or not. This is also good to keep in mind when handling your black and yellow stain of a pet, so make sure your hands are clean and kept moist when holding. Coconut husks are nice for many reasons: one they are clean, two, they are light and allow for your salamander to burrow, third because I said so. Other soils work nice and mixing a couple is even better! Word on the street is that mixing coconut husk with a bit of sand and dirt makes a soft substrate that is structurally sound for digging as well as staying light and fluffy. Keep it moist and change every month or two so as to keep fruit flies and their relatives at bay. Have 3-6 inches of dirt to allow your salamander the ability to burrow down a bit.
For good measure and to keep humidity up, place an inch or so of sphagnum, peat or backyard moss all over the place. Carpet your cage and your beast will bed deep. |
Lighting and UVB: | Arguably, little to no special bulbs are needed to keep your babies healthy as most salamanders keep themselves naturally out of it for most of their lives. Here in the suburbs though where our animals will be out year round, a reptile bulb such as exo Terra’s 2.0 work great. Personally i say Suck my Nuts to companies as big and not so great as exo Terra but that doesn’t mean your amphibian agrees. Splurge for a bulb or don’t, its up to you, but watch your animals health. If anything starts to go wrong, buy that bulb to help your animal synthesize anything it may not be! |
Temperatures and Humidity: | Naturally, A. tigrinum is in a state of hibernation or something close to it much of the year meaning it is around lower temperatures quite often. When A. tigrinum is active in the wild, it is often at night and on rainy ones at that. Again, being in suburbia means that the weather will be summer like all the time. room temperature is more than fine for your kids as long as your room is around 68- 78 degrees. any lower and hibernation troubles may occur, any higher and your soup will have an extra ingredient than last time. Mind this fact though, often during the winter months, even when your A, tigrinum’s tank is 72ish degrees, your animal may stop showing itself and crickets may start building up in the tank. This is very common and simply just your salamanders internal clock saying its time to hibernate. One year, I could not find one of my tigrinum’s at all. I looked all over, sifted the dirt and even chirped "dinner time" hoping a head would burst out of the ground. No sign. 4 months later though, a familiar face was seen in the water dish, only with a little scar on it. While searching for him during the missing period I had incidentally scratched him!
So if your salamander does go to sleep, keep searching to a minimum. They want to be left alone and often when searching you could do more harm than good.
A. tigrinum is still an amphibian and therefore still needs moisture constantly. Keep the soil moist to the touch but not sopping wet (that’s what the water dish is for). Mist the cage daily to keep the relative humidity up but not underwater. They should be able to get the moisture you need from the moss around them or their water dish, but if you see your fat lump in its dish all the time, try misting more than usual ( like 3 times a day) for 1-2 weeks. If it stays out of the water more that should tell you to mist more from now on. If it stays in the water a ton still and your cage is dripping, the A. tigrinum probably just has a water fetish, which is more than fine. Feed the fetish.
Remember, moist soil at 72ish degrees with a spritz a day keeps death away. |
Heating and Equipment: | None needed unless your room temp does not meet our strict standards. If it doesn’t, please, do not buy a heat rock. Your animal will burn itself and or cook itself and or electrocute itself and or hate you. an over tank heater works but a under tank heat pad is best, this is because not only will it heat your tank, and not burn your salamander, it will warm the soil best and not give you a false sense of what your cage temp is. Remember, take the temp of where your salamander spends most of its time, i.e. underground. |
Caging Provided: | Just because your animal resembles and even acts like a slug, this does not mean you can keep it in your fishbowl. Less is not more and in this case, the bigger the better. 10 gallons per individual should be sufficient, but 20 gallons for 1-3 is best. Mind you, a tall 20 gallon tank is not what I am referencing. Get a tank that is long, not tall as A. tigrinum will burrow not fly.
Even though your A. tigrinum burrows, it will more than likely prefer to crawl under logs and rocks where it can make an easy access path to get in and out of. Supply your cage with plenty of hiding places full of creativity. Mossy logs from the forest, flat river rocks with suggestive shapes and bark all work great and look ten times better than that old McDonald’s cup you found inside your bed last night. Store bought hides work well but aren’t as fun. If you do buy a little cave, shove moist moss inside to fill up the excess space and keep the hide full of humidity. Throw moss all over your cage to let your salamander stay moist. It also keeps them clean of dirt when they jump into your water. Change your water daily ideally, but more than likely you are lazy and won’t want to change it before bed every night. If so change the water whenever the water gets murky, filled with dirt, or gains a rainbow sheen to the top. Light again, isn’t necessary, but if you want a bulb, buy a fluorescent light as it will supplement the animal as well as make the terrarium look way hotter than with a regular incandescent bulb.
Your A. tigrinum may be chubby and sluggish, but that doesn’t mean it wont be able to escape. A screen top or fish tank lid with a strip light work wonders. Fish tank hoods are great because they keep heat, humidity and your salamander in and I would strongly recommend touring your local thrift store for one for cheap. Brand new they run for more than they should at around 30-40 dollars. Not from my wallet Pet Co. Some will not even bother to try and escape and will be perfectly content in their tank. Its been true for me in the past, but not necessarily smart. Not having a lid is not worth the risk, and a brand new screen will run you 10 bucks, worth every penny and every life.
In short, hiding places are wonderful with 4-6 inches of substrate, a minimum of 10 gallons per individual, and a lid for safety’s sake will give your animal what it greeds for. |
Diet: | Carnivorous |
Description of Diet: | Throw out the salad and bring in the insects. A. tigrinum love their food and are very quirky about showing you so, bursting out of the ground and climbing the glass to show you just how happy they are to see you feed them.
Along with their love of food is an endless appetite, which is a blessing and a burden. Be careful not to overfeed your salamander as obesity should be a big concern, as it shortens your animals lifespan and extends your animals laziness.
Try to feed your animal soft bodied insects, like crickets and mealworms, not beetles which bite and bother. crush mealworms heads to ensure that your salamander is the only one biting. Crickets work best in my experience as they have high crude protein and medium crude fat, while mealworms have a little lower protein and a much higher fat percentage. Mix the diet up every once in a while to keep your animal interested in food. Worms are good and healthy, just make sure that it isn’t too big!
Feed adults every other day 3 crickets or so. Gage your feeding by how your animal looks in the stomach, not how hungry they act.
Supplement the diet with calcium powder once a week to fulfill vitamin requirements. Do this by shaking your prey in a vitamin powder container just before feeding, purchased from your local pet shop or grinding up some household vitamins. If fed in their cage be careful as salamanders have sticky mouths for grabbing food and may accidentally grab some moss along with the prey. If left undigested, the substrate may impact in your salamanders stomach causing death. Do at your own risk *impaction is real and does happen, but is more likely with certain animals and with certain beddings (like geckos) * Salamanders are good at not dying and seem to pass moss and dirt well, but that does not mean they are impervious to impaction. To avoid this issue, feed your animal in a separate container with no substrate.
Salamanders hunt like in Jurassic park "they can’t see us unless we move" meaning their sight is based on movementish. IF the prey doesn’t move like a cricket does, it may not be prey that day. To feed smashed-headed mealworms, grab by the tail and hold in front of the salamander’s face. It should strike fast and probably will get you a little too (don’t worry, feels like a new born baby biting)! |
Supplements, Nutrition and Usage: | Vitamin supplement once a week by dusting your food with the vitamin powder that can be found at your local pet store or made at home by crushing up some vitamins with a few calcium supplement pills into a fine powder. shake your bugs in a container of the powder to "dust" them in it so that when your salamander eats the insect, it eats the supplement too! |
Maintenance: | One of the easiest and funniest animals around to keep. -( )- For beginners as well as advanced keepers alike. Their ( ) bodies are segmented-looking giving them a tube like -( )- body (artists rendition on right). Do not mistake these ( ) ridges for ribs when diagnosing weight as you will get an () improper Gage. If your animal is straight as a cucumber,()
its starving, if its round as a tomato, its obese, morbidly. /
A little chub isn’t bad so long as its a little. |
Some Words on this Species: | Their coloration can range from Mustard yellow and black splotched all over to a dark evergreen mottling. Can reach a length of 12 inches but will more than likely bottom out at 7 inches. Can be found throughout the united states and are prevalent especially on the west coast. As well, it is often mistaken for its smaller relative the long toed salamander, Ambystoma macrodactylum, who shares much of its range and coloration. As said earlier, these animals will routinely greet you every time you enter your room, emerging from their dirt crypt expecting to be fed. Two separate species of tiger salamander exist the common tiger salamander A. tigrinum and the California tiger salamander A. californiense, which is a threatened or even endangered species. Please look at images to make sure you do not have one of these rare beasts as you are doing it and its species no good keeping it, and set it free exactly where you found it, or if purchased from a pet store, turn it over to the wildlife officials who can redirect it to its proper homelands, thereafter boil some hot coffee and take a brisk walk to the pet store where you purchased it. Kindly tell the manager what you know and, while smiling, throw the scalding coffee in his face and beat him to a pulp. You will feel the satisfaction of knowing that you have truly contributed to the preservation of a species, thereby making it possible for such an animal to thrive once again. Oh and you now know just how other people like your coffee.
Have fun and happy herping!!
Mr. Money |
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