Okay, for the last week I have been looking for herps for my teacher. That means over 2 hours of looking a day! I got all kinds off stuff but was wondering. How do you keep red-backed salamanders. I can get loads of them where I go looking but how do you keep the tank at 63 degrees farniheight all the time except winter. My house is in 90's with nothing on in summer. All help appreciated.

They have to be kept a constant 63 ?? I have a marbled sallie that we keep in a 20 gallon long with a mixture of potting soil, vermiculite and moss that is all very damp to where there is almost visible water in the very bottom ( I'd say maybe 6 inches of the mixture) We keep this in the house most of the year and whenever I monitor the temps it is ALLWAYS below room temp.

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Ken
" The United States Marine Corps......sure we are a department of the Navy,,,,,,we're the MENS department "

haha I have no experience on sallies.... one creature we don't have in africa. I really like them though... could you post pics of yours you gonna keep... they are very interesting creatures...like a frog-gecko hybrid...lol

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Hello,

We have loads of the red-backed Salamanders here in Massachusetts (Plethodon cinereus). I kept literally thousands of the little buggers when I was a kid. (I know many of you will dislike this statement, but they made great fishing bait when I was younger.)

When I was keeping them, I would just toss some soil in a critter keeper, mist it, add some debris from the site I captured the sallies at and keep them in my bedroom. I never did much to create an ideal habitat as they never required much. It is crucial to keep them moist though. As weird as it may sound, they don't have lungs to breathe. They breathe through their skin. If their skin dries out, they will suffocate.

I use to feed them rollie pollies, (I have no idea what they are actually called. They are a small anthropod.) centipedes, and other critters found under logs.

They would do fine for months until I decided it was time to go fishing.

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hahaha...send your fishing bait my way....i bet it is worth quite a bit here...lol

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Ok I will try the stuff you guys said. And Rich, I learned rollir pollies are a type off water flea.why do they live on land...no one knows.

Hello,

After your post Sean, I was inclined to do some scouring to find out what a "Rollie pollie" really was. I knew it wasn't a type of flea, which is what prompted the search.

"Rollie Pollies" are actually called a Pill Bug. They got the name "Rollie pollie" because as a defense mechanism, they "roll" into a ball. Here is a picture of the critter I am referring to: Pill Bug / Rollie Pollie

They can be found in moist environments and apparently feed on organic matter.

When I would gather them for feedings, I would just grab the smallest of the ones I came across. I never thought of it before, but they did well in the tanks too. I guess they just fed themselves on the leaf litter I had added for the sallies. lol

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Most newts and sallies are rather hard to keep and breed in vivariums due to the temperatures that they like. Most dwell in spring/ground feed rivers and streams where the water is extremely cold. There is an area around me that acted as a net for a lot of the Northern Area salamanders which made their way down through the rivers ages ago, they settled there due to the abundance of cold streams and have a very established population of rare species. They should be kept as close to the mid 60's as possible, redbacks are supposudly really sensitive to heat.

I've been wanting to get some sallys for a LONG time. I might consider it now that I have a decent house where I can keep the ambient temps in the mid 70's but I would still want fans and maybe even a chiller to keep the temps down.

Two ways of keeping the temps down is to cool the tank directly with a chiller or fan or to cool the whole room with a window A/C unit.

OH! My insect guides are not the best.