Tiger salamander care

[Maharg]

hm... a question - how much food if enough? the guy eats 5 adult crickets one after another everyday and would probably eat some more if given, even for small sal it seems to be too much...

s/he refuses pieces of nightcrawlers or any type of worms, dubia are illegal, so that leaves me with crickets for now, but will try to transition to nightcrawlers eventually.

Maybe the Salamander is refusing the nightcrawlers because they are cut up and not moving around as much? When I was at Riverfront at night I always got to watch them feed. They just dropped in a massive amount of nightcrawlers and all the Tigers were just going nuts like a free-for-all. They werent used to them being cut in chunks and every Salamander there had a worm in its mouth. Id just try full worms and not worry about cutting them up.

[Lija]

seriously? you saw them do that recently? for one of those that I have? i thought the whole nightcrawler is too big, mean it is now about 7" or 8" long with a tail, but the body looks small. may be i should try butterworms or wax worms, will go on a reptile store trip then today :lol:

it is just hilarious how the guy learned to beg for food an also interesting that s/he differentiate whom to beg for it, very interesting personality

[Maharg]

seriously? you saw them do that recently? for one of those that I have? i thought the whole nightcrawler is too big, mean it is now about 7" or 8" long with a tail, but the body looks small. may be i should try butterworms or wax worms, will go on a reptile store trip then today :lol:

it is just hilarious how the guy learned to beg for food an also interesting that s/he differentiate whom to beg for it, very interesting personality

Yes, Im always at riverfront around 8 and I got to watch them feed quite a few times. They were just dropping in lots of full nightcrawlers, and the ones at riverfront are pretty big. In fact, riverfronts crawlers are the biggest ive found in the city. Itd take them quite a while to get it down, and I know nothing about Salamanders to know if its healthy, but they had no problems and im sure they get a hold of some pretty big ones in nature. Tiger Salamanders are native to Calgary and we have some pretty huge nightcrawlers here so im sure they dont have an issue with worms being to big.

[Maharg]

Long story short, ive definitely seen your Salamander eat a full large nightcrawler at some point lol

[Lija]

no those are not native to Alberta, we have different ones here, blotched. so had a chat with Andrew ( the frog guy from riverfront), and right now my sal is eating the 6th wax worm, probably the piece was just not wiggly enough.

[Maharg]

no those are not native to Alberta, we have different ones here, blotched. so had a chat with Andrew ( the frog guy from riverfront), and right now my sal is eating the 6th wax worm, probably the piece was just not wiggly enough.

Suprisingly, we do indeed have Tiger Sals here. I used to work construction down by quarry park/douglasdale area and during rains would see several a day sometimes. Havnt seen any in a few years lately although. Definitely still here though.

Alberta ESRD - Tiger Salamander

[Lija]

I guess i need some help with classification here, the one i got is eastern tiger salamander ( it said so on a tank at the store and i have reasons to believe they know it for sure), so I'm guessing I have Ambystoma tigrinum, but western Ambystoma mavortum look almost like eastern, but the website you gave says we have tigrinum. is there any obvious difference? or I'm mixing it all up that is very likely, cos i knew nothing about sals until few days ago :lol: Cam what is that you have pictured earlier? will post pic of mine too for you to confirm what i have :lol:

by the way got a new tank exo terra 24Lx18Wx12H - do you think i can use it for my tiger now and later when s/he is adult or should i get bigger? itching to do something like Cam did in his, with filter and everything

[Lija]

Yes, Im always at riverfront around 8

wait a minute... you are what coming every day? :lol:

[Maharg]

Yes, lol. I was going close to every day. If not every second day. Feeding the Rococo requires many, many visits to the pet store haha. I dont know much about Salamanders either, but im 99.999% sure your new tank size is plenty. Generally the bigger the better is probably true, but I dont think Tiger Sals need copious amounts of space. As for there being different species of Tiger Sal, I was always under the impression there was only one.

[Lija]

hm.. a question, does salamander produce any noises? I've heard something in higher pitch quite a few times, that I haven't heard before coming from amphibian rack, and that is definitely not a a waxy/pixie/pacman croak. my girls are quiet, that leaves only sal.

[Lija]

and pics - would you help me ID - A tigrinum? in a fat belly that you can see are 20 wax worms and 1 nighcrawler (whole), i think I need to limit food intake after all.

[Lija]

anyone ?

[Pluke]

Wish I could help with the exact species Lija, I don't know though. I can say that he looks really good and that I have heard that Tigers can make a squeaking noise.. and they are known for getting obese so you might want to ease up on the Waxworms, they're extremely fatty. I'm sure you can judge how much is too much, these salamanders will always take food so you gotta know when to quit.

[Lija]

no he is on a diet now :lol:
with wax worms that was one time thing only I got a package of 50 wax worms that nobody else would eat, it was interesting to see how much is enough, apparently there is no limit with this guy, although with 3 big silkworms today he seems kinda full.
he is mainly on nightcrawlers now with occasional hormworms/silkworms/butterworms/crickets, he is eating anything that moves and not, i had pacman food leftovers, he ate it too.

[Pluke]

Sounds like he's pretty spoiled to me, haha. I wish I could find some silkworms around here.. I saw them once and didn't get them, now I never see them. I'm going to attempt to breed some in spring I think. I've bred the Hornworms and that was pretty easy, I don't imagine silk worms will that much more difficult.

[Lija]

oh yes he is spoiled big time, actually all of mine are :lol: we have here silkworms always available in different sizes, but those that I got are huge , probably 2" and fat, but i would trade this to having roaches any time
that thing ( as we call it :lol would beg for food any time somebody is passing by, most of the time he is running along the glass and jumping on it, you'd think he is starving here to death.
need to have a chat with you on breeding hormworms, i always thought it is very difficult, my frogs love them, but we should take it to feeder section

[rodsboys]

and pics - would you help me ID - A tigrinum? in a fat belly that you can see are 20 wax worms and 1 nighcrawler (whole), i think I need to limit food intake after all.

I would say A tigrinum based on the pics. I agree with Pluke, you are feeding too much. They will never get to eat like that in the wild. If you do feed them a meal that sized you have to make them fast for a while so they can burn off some of those nutrients.

[Lija]

the guy is on a diet now, one nightcrawler a day or similar amount of something else, mostly crickets.

thanks, so i have in fact eastern one! good to know.