1st Axies, come as eggs.

[spyder]

Wow, where to start. Been super busy clearing the garage to start work on the fish house for angel breeding. My brothers other half had 4 axies from me, 3 WT, 1 GA. I still have 8 WT's and 5GA's growing on.

Back legs are certainly coming in nicely now. The markings on the wild types are very nice. I snapped these about half hour ago to update this thread.

Whiteworms are coming on. They are so slow to populate but I did split my starter culture into 2 tubs. I loosened up the soil a few days ago and was surprised by the amount of worms in the soil. They seem to love hikari algae wafers.

Anyway a few shots and some in focus, yippee Golden Albino's are tough to shoot though.

Apologies for short post but I have to get in the shower and get into bed.

 

[tfmreefs]

How old are these guys? ADORABLE!

 

[spyder]

How old are these guys? ADORABLE!

They hatched on the 17th March. That makes them around 2 months old.

 

[LJay]

Oh wow! There cute love the colors and patterns

 

[spyder]

MEEX. I've got Micro, Walter and Banana worm cultures on the go now too. I think they will make great first axie foods especially when you have limited time before going to work etc. I find they will survive in water all day so no worrying about them dying off and fouling the water whilst at work. They wriggle on the bottom too so seem perfect.

I'll get to test them out shortly as I'm picking up another 40 axi eggs on Wednesday. Hoping for some different colour types from that batch. This will give me some unrelated axie's to choose from to cross with my exisitng axies in the future.

White worms. Hmm. Well my population is increasing but nowhere near enough to harvest. I loosened up the soil a few days ago and noticed plenty just under the surface. It seems my cultures have got contaminated with little white bugs and tiny slugs

 

[MEEX]

I think my white worms are just shy. They didn't touch the surface food for a long time, but some cat biscuits got buried so I wasn't too worried. Then the bread on the surface disappeared overnight, and now we're back to ignoring it.

My main worry is that I made the air-holes too big. Every other day the shed mouse has pulled out the cotton wool, and I'm scared shirtless that he'll be in there one day, angry and waiting.

At this rate I'll be passing the 'lotls on before I get enough worms to harvest, but I'm sure my friend will appreciate inheriting a tub of mouldy bread and yoghurt*. I may even keep a tub going ready for next year, I'm finding that maintaining all these cultures is nearly as much fun as caring for 150 'lotls every day.


* It isn't mouldy, but it might just be by then!

 

[spyder]

I'm finding that maintaining all these cultures is nearly as much fun as caring for 150 'lotls every day.

Rather you than me. 150 is a LOT to care for. I've had fun with 20 but 150?

I'm in the middle of building a fish house in the garage it's around 7foot x 9 foot. I'll be breeding a variety of fish with the main focus on Angels and Corydoras along with smaller stuff like barb's rasbora's tetra's and danios. The worm cultures will certainly come in handy.

I've almost finished framing it up. Cable is going in tomorrow. Insulation and boarding up follows when funds allow.

1 pic is from Monday when timber arrived. You can just make out racking on the right which has axie cubes and a tank growing on some angels with a breeding pair on top. The other pic is from tonight with framing almost complete.

Edit. Trying to spawn some gold white cloud mountain minnows in the office now the axies have been moved. Just introduced the male.

 

[MEEX]

It's a bit shy of 150 I reckon, but I purposefully didn't count them.
And there's one less because I lost my runt the other day. He never grew beyond 2cm and I only ever saw him eat that single microworm. I don't know how he kept going so long, and we tried our best, but it obviously wasn't meant to be.

Everyone else is fine, back legs and feet on most of them. Have noticed a few missing limbs, but nothing going furry due to infection or anything.

I wasn't going to pass them on until they actually use the back legs rather than just have them splayed out, but they don't seem to be in any hurry to stand, never mind start walking.

As I'm doing this as a favour I was trying to limit how much I spent on food, but I can't report any great success.
I bought another Daphnia culture and it was much nicer than the first, but I still don't have enough to harvest.
Same with my whiteworms, I'm thinking of starting over. I had a dig around in there and only found a few, I think it just started off too wet. I've tried drying it a bit but I think the damage is done.
Microworms aren't a problem, just a shame they don't offer more as a foodstuff.
Frozen bloodworms are going down fine, but so is my bank balance!

I knew I should have charged the proper price for all my eggs!
Great to see that they went to such a good home though!

 

[spyder]

Yes they are doing well and getting well fed. May I suggest grindal worms? I had a nice starter culture from a member here, can't remember the persons username but a quick look in the UK FS thread would find them. They reproduce at an alarming rate and the culture was a very good price. I would imagine they are perfect size as a step up food when they are around 1-2 weeks old. Not much use to you now but for future reference. Would save on some brine shrimp.

I've had to move some axies (8 wild type) to another tank 30x15x12 half filled with water situated outside in a shady spot. I needed to free up a couple of cubes for another project. They went in tonight and seem to enjoy it. I will try and post up a photo or two tomorrow.

Oh, put me down for some more eggs when they spawn next, say about 40. The other deal kinda fell through due to availability. I don't mind paying a little bit more.

 

[MEEX]

Sorry - nothing to report really!

It's a shame your other deal fell through, you'd be more than welcome to as many as you want next time mine lays, but I'm hoping to get Christmas/New Year out the way first! And I'll definitely remember Grindal worms if I keep any myself, I've got the bug now...and anything that cuts down on Brine Shrimp is a bonus!


The 'lotl farm/factory(?) is ticking over nicely. Some new filters arrived from China which means they aren't as crowded now (not that they were overcrowded before), so everybody is happy. A few missing limbs, but no signs of fighting/cannibalism. :happy:

I've started over with two new white worm cultures, and I've tried to rescue my soggy mess by spreading it between more tubs (special offer in Sainsbury's if you need any) but it's too soon to say with any of them.
The only Daphnia success I've had is from the 2 litre bottle of green water I was storing that somehow got a lone creature in - and is now out-perfoming my two 'proper' cultures!? I honestly have no idea how it happened (baster backwash?) but it worked, so the spare room has got a window-sill full of manky pop-bottles. Lovely!
Slight slowdown on the microworms, which I don't mind, just 3 on the go now. I'll keep them ticking over until the white worms get going, so possibly a few years yet.

Also, I've been speaking to a lovely lady at Wormcity about setting up a wormery for red wigglers, and I've been so impressed that I've scratched my idea of home-made and decided to do it properly. Hopefully this won't actually be needed to feed lots of 'lotls, but I'm a bit concerned that my friend hasn't responded to my last two progress reports. :uhoh:

Sorry - I guess I'm addicted to raising food now!

[EDIT] Does anybody else get a 'not logged in' error when trying to post? Happened a few times now, despite the 'welcome back, thanks for logging in' screen.
​

 

[spyder]

No errors for me, so far at least.

The collection of manky pop bottles sounds familiar. I've started some paramecium cultures for feeding young minnows on for the first week or so. I'm also keeping up on the banana, walter and micro worm cultures but only 2 of each in rotation. Those things produce so much food I would say 90% of it gets flushed away.

Whiteworms? Well I think mine have finally started getting "over the hill" and I have started to notice clumps of young worms around the food. Maybe in 6 months time there will be enough to harvest some, not a lot mind you, just a snack for some of my angels.

Axies all doing well. No missing limbs but I can see some have lost the tips of their gills. The 5 GA have joined the 8 WT in the 30x15x12 outdoor axi aquarium. They love to hide under the rocks and slate. I may grab a bag of playsand from Argos today and as I have a day off tomorrow, I can make their little axi paradise a little more fun for them.

Red wigglers? The smaller redworm type? I've been thinking about these for a while. Culturing food is addictive.

Right time to hit post and see if I get an error

 

[MEEX]

Well, something broke this thread, lol.

Been majorly busy, not least because the person I was growing these for changed his mind. I don't want to say lumbered, but I've got a bath full of axolotls that I don't really want to keep in there any longer! I'm thinking of digging a pond, but in the meantime if anybody wants a 3.5 to 5 inch Wild or Golden Albino let me know!

 

[SariYappa]

Hi guys...
It was fun watching these grow... Would love an update

I am waiting on the mail now for my first eggs... Wondering what the plant is you have laying in the boxes with the babies?

Thanks

 

[MEEX]

The setup I have is most of them are actually in my bath (don't worry, I still shower once a month, whether I need it or not), with tubs resting over it (what did we do before under-bed storage tubs?) all running sponge filters with some Arcadia Polyfilter in for good measure.

I took a few pictures of the setup, then realised that I couldn't see any axies through the jungle of Elodea. Is there such a thing as too much? It grows really well in my bath / tubs, not so well in my half-lit tank, so I keep having to replenish it.

Shame my contact changed his mind, but I'm glad I got the chance to bring these up properly (Thanks again to Caudata!) if only there was something I could do with them now.
I sold half a dozen on 'the bay' before they pulled my listing but none of my local fish shops are interested. What did amaze me was that everybody wanted the Golden Albinos, I much prefer the Wild and don't actually like golden (or 'le-pink', not that I have those) very much at all.

There are around 25 now waiting to find a new home, and plenty more less-limbs-than-perfect in the bath I'm afraid. I really could do with thinning the herd.
Mum is starting to resemble a football too, much bigger than before she laid last year, so I've got that to look forward to.

Good luck with your eggs, BTW!

 

[SariYappa]

Thank you for the update

Unfortunately, the eggs didn't make it safely to my house... But the female laid eggs again, and we are trying one more time...

I realised that you were the original breeder and shipped to spyder... Any chance you can check out my new thread, and post some helpful tips on shipping?

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...breeding/93513-help-shipping-eggs-safely.html

And now I know... It's elodea... Gotta get some

 

[spyder]

Hi guys.

They are doing great but no new pictures. I'll try and snap a few soon.

I still have around half a dozen of the blighters and they are a good 6-7 inches now.

 

[MEEX]

Blighters?!? :shocked:



Weird coincidence that you should post again now, I've just popped back on because she laid again yesterday.
It's a good size batch and a lot cleaner this time because I had left the elodea free-floating and she went for that rather than the tank furniture.

I'm not convinced she's done, but she held your batch back last time and they were ok.

Live food update ():
Had a white worm crash last week actually, but I should have enough on the go to recover soon enough, or I'll treat myself to a nice new culture to be sure.

I'm getting a nice sized wriggler out of my garden wormery just recently, but I think it may need a top-up to cover winter. The only problem is they like it in the sump and a few drown, and we don't really produce enough food waste, so I've had to buy food in for them as well!

My microworms could do with a recharge, I'll be doing that tomorrow, but I don't know if they'll be ready to send out with the eggs.

[ETA] No problem posting this time!