Active Feeding

[sodiumlattice]

Hello! I fell into owning around 7 axolotl larvae, and now I'm sort of concerned about feeding them.

They hatched about 3 or 4 days ago. The day I was given them I immediately ran out and purchased some powdered fry food. I know it isn't what they prefer, but I thought that, since it moves throughout the water column they might eat it.

I also added a sprig of what appears to be hornwort to their tank. I know that plants often bring/support microbes into an aquarium. I then started looking for live food sources. I can't seem to find brine shrimp eggs around here, and the only pet store around, pet smart, doesn't have live food. I turned to our local lake for some daphnia. I collected about a gallon from the end of a dock.

When i got it home, I immediately inspected the water. I can see small swimming organisms in it. They definitely appear small enough for my larvae to eat. I introduced them to the larvae tank.

My concerns are: The larvae don't swim a great deal. They do swim, but usually they just sit in the plant or on the bottom. When they do swim, it's fast bolts.

I haven't seen them actually eat or snap at anything. Granted, I don't have time to sit there and watch. Is it normal to not actually see them eat?

Will the daphnia survive in the tank? I know they can eat algae, so I have the plant has enough for them to eat.

Should I remove the plant? I want to make sure the axolotls actually see their food! How do I know if I've put enough daphnia in?

Will the daphnia breed in the tank?

Obviously, I'm very concerned for my larvae. I'm very new at this (not fish, but larvae care) and I would hate for them to starve! SOrry for the very long post!roud:

 

[sherylbobbins]

Don't you just love it when you have to resort to wild daphnia? The larvae should eat it as long as they are basically swimming in a whole heap of daphnia. So basically keep them in fairly shallow water with a lot of daphnia. Unfortunately there would be little chance that they will eat the powered fry food. One of the only problem of catching daphnia from a lake is that you don't know for sure if you are introducing disease to your larvae. My friend had to resort to it otherwise all her larvae would of starved to death. We discovered it is relatively easy to buy brine shrimp eggs off ebay and hatching them isn't that hard at all.

It's fairly normal for the larve not to move much except when they're 'pinballing' around the tank or eating (they only move briefly). The daphnia should survive for a few days or so. Baby axies don't really see their food, they just detect the movement of their food in the water. This is why you have to feed them live food at such a young age.

Oh look! There's a page dedicated to Daphnia on the site. Ignore what I just said above

http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/

 

[sodiumlattice]

Perfect!

Well I had been simply taking empty gallon jugs and filling them with water. I would then use that water during water changes because I could see a few swimming daphnia (or whatever they were).

For obvious reasons, I didn't enjoy that. I didn't like the idea of introducing that sort of water to the larvae tank....also...I just can't consider it a water change when it wasn't fresh water!

So i went out and go two brineshrimp nets. One large, one small. I went to the reservoir and ran the net through...eh i got some stuff but not much.

Finally, I stuffed one net in the other and went elbow deep into the water. I got TONS of little daphnia and a some organism that looks like daphnia, only it's reddish orange.

By the time I was done there, I had plenty of food for them. I went home, did a water change with perfectly clean water and introduced a great deal of the daphnia.

aaaaand.......they immediately started feeding! I'm very excited about that....

Oh and I learned that they were officially born September 30 or October 1.