Axolotl Hatchlings

[AliM96]

I am currently homing 100+ hatchlings. I am keeping them in plastic boxes at the moment in groups, as they are not yet really eating eachother yet, but I was wondering if anyone has any tips on where I would be able to keep them in a handy and easy way? Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Kaysie]

There's no easy way to raise that many larvae.

 

[JessKB]

I keep them together in few tupperwares until they are big enough to easily eat black worms. Then I keep each one in its own deli cup and feed blackworms everyday and change 100% of their water every 1-2 days. I keep them like that until I sell them. It still takes an hour or two a day worth of work.

 

[SuperSteve]

I threw myself in at the deep end and tried to raise nearly 1000 from the egg. I have around half remaining and it still takes a massive part of the day. I suggest keeping them in groups of 10, feeding once daily and changing the water and washing the tubs once daily. Good luck! :tongue:

 

[tigmades]

I have 52 hatchlings right now that are ~2.5 weeks old. I'm going to attempt to raise them together, but I have containers to separate them should there be a problem.

Currently I have 6-10 hatchlings separated by size in 12"x9" food-grade containers I got at the dollar store. They're ~3/4-7/8" right now so not too big. As they get bigger, I'll decrease the number of hatchlings/container to a)keep water parameters better, and b)decrease likely hood of axies coming into contact with one another. I think the key to success in group raising with as little risk to injury would be to feed each individually (I'm currently doing that with white worms cut in half), not leaving any food for them to have a spat over, and offer plenty of places to hide (floating plants,fake ones, etc).

Keep in mind keeping them as groups, you still need to do lots of water changes. Currently I change 40-50% of the water every 1-2 days, as well as scrub out as soon as you notice any of the sides getting slimey. I also poop-hunt with my turkey baster 1-2x a day. Doesn't hurt to do 100% water changes 1-2x a week, too, as well as scrub out the container (I just scrub it with my fingers using the old water).

I have a 5gal pail that I fill with close to container-temperature, add dechlorinator, then let it sit for 24h just to be extra cautious When they get larger I'll probably pick up a second 5gal pail.

Hope that helps/gives you ideas!

 

[Kaysie]

Here's my setup. I've got ten ~1inch axolotls. The 2 runts have their own tub, and the other 8 are split by size.

I'm currently feeding a mix of daphnia and brine shrimp. The two gross tubs on the left are my mini daphnia tanks, recovered when I turkey-bastered the brine shrimp out. Why waste good daphnia?

I also just scrub the old tanks with my hand and rinse it out. Worked for me for years.

 

[Kerry M]

I gradually reduced their numbers in containers. When they were about 1 month I put them each in one litre containers, so there were 130 containers. I cleaned out each container every day, might have missed a day here and there. It took up to 4 hours a day to do this work. Transitioned them from BBS to blackworms at this time. When they started jumping out the containers I used glad wrap to construct barriers around my shelves. It was a funny sight. At 3 months I housed them in groups but fed them twice daily to minimise cannibalism. I agree that there isn 't really an easy way to do it. But it is a rewarding experience, and I would do it again but with 20 hatchlings to reduce the work load.

 

[xxianxx]

With small amounts of larvae it is easy to keep them in individual containers with a few plants and drop daphnia on them every couple of days and do a small water change. Once you have larger numbers this becomes a different story. I like to raise a couple hundred at a time and use the same technique.

These guys have just hatched and are being fed on baby brine shrimp, the leaf in the tub is a bit of almond leaf which I use to keep fungus off the eggs, the link is how I raise them at this stage http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...sing-baby-axolotls-baby-brine-shrimp-bbs.html

These guys are about 1"-1.75", they are fed live whiteworm, frozen bloodworm and cleaned twice a day. They are due an upgrade and will be separated by size into two of the tubs in the picture, with this size difference I have seen some incidents of cannibalism but that doesn't overly concern me as it is just the runts being picked off.

As the axolotls get bigger you need to decrease their stocking density and keep them well fed or they will take limbs of each other, cannibalism is a problem as some will start to have an increased growth rate from eating tank mates and they develop a habit of it lol. Best to pull the cannibals from the tank as they will not be eating the runts but quality axolotls. These guys are 3" or so, they are fed chopped earthworm, frozen bloodworm and live white worm and get a 80% water change every couple of days, they also eat all the baby snails in the tank. You can see from the pic that there are quite a few adult snails in with them, they constantly lay eggs but I dont see many babies and no..... they dont cause impactions . I would normally look to sell/trade them at this size but they are being grown on for sale at two shows (SWARE and BAKs). If you are planning to raise a hundred axolotls you need to find buyers, private sales will only account for a few, so you need to to source pet shops, they will take them at the right price or give you store credit, just remember to offer them a cash price and a store credit price , the mark up on their stock can be a couple hundred percent even if your store credit price is 50% more than the cash price they probably wont refuse.