How to Breed Fire Salamanders

The fire salamander is native to most of Europe and reaches a mature length of 8 to 12 inches. It is black with yellow spots, or yellow with black spots depending on the individual salamander's appearance. Some varieties also may have shades of red and orange mixed into their colored areas. A salamander that is well cared for will live an average of 30 years in captivity. The fire salamander is relatively easy to breed in a home aquarium.

Things You'll Need

  • Bowl
  • Water
  • 10-gallon tank
  • Floating land mass
  • Soil
  • Cocoa hulls
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Instructions

    • 1

      Make sure you have a mature, male-female pair. Fire salamanders become sexually mature at about 4 years of age. When mature, female salamanders are slightly larger than male salamanders. Male salamanders also have a swollen gland near their vent during the breeding season.

    • 2

      Put your salamanders into a dormant period, or force them to hibernate. Stop feeding your salamanders for a period of two weeks before cooling them down. Then, slowly lower the temperature inside their aquarium to between 41 and 45 degrees. Lower the temperature two or three degrees a day until you reach the target temperature. Many breeders put the aquarium in a refrigerator during the cooling-off period to ensure that it stays cold enough to keep the salamanders in hibernation.

    • 3

      Slowly warm your fire salamanders back up at the end of hibernation. Typically 30 to 60 days is a long enough hibernation period. Raise the temperature inside the habitat two degrees a day until it gets back up to room temperature.

    • 4

      Put the male and female salamanders inside a breeding aquarium. It should have a coco husk sandy topsoil-blend substrate in the bottom as bedding and a shallow bowl of water at one end. The salamander needs to be able to climb inside the bowl, so partially bury the bowl in the substrate.

    • 5

      Watch for mating to take place. The male will block the path of the female and rub her with his chin. He will deposit a small packet of sperm onto the bedding on the floor of the aquarium and then push the female on top of the sperm. He will then push down on her body to try to move her so that her cloacae comes in contact with the stem and fertilizes the eggs she is carrying in her abdomen.

    • 6

      Monitor the bowl of water. When the eggs begin to hatch, the mother salamander will release the live and fully hatched larvae into the water.

    • 7

      Remove the bowl from the breeding tank and release the larvae into in a fully aquatic, 10-gallon fish tank. Feed the babies bloodworms, cut up earthworms and fruit flies.

    • 8

      Add a floating land mass to the aquarium, or enough gravel to create a land mass about three weeks after the larvae are born. At about four weeks the aquatic larvae will begin to undergo metamorphosis and become little salamanders. At this point they should be transferred to a land tank like that of their parents.