Expected death rate in normal larvae?

[Genome42]

What proportion of larvae would be expected not to make it even in optimal conditions?
I had 27 and i have had two deaths in the past day i have done a complete water change with decholorinated water everyday and i am feeding on daphinia (from an aquarium shop) currently as i ruined my brine shrimp hatchery as i wasn't too sure what i was doing with it the first time round!
Is there something i could be doing wrong or are a small number of deaths to be expected? The remaining larvae currently look healthy and appear to be feeding (they move around in response to the daphinia) The two dead ones seem bloated around there bellys but its diificult to really tell with them being still quite small. They hatched from Monday-Thursday.
Thanks for any help which you can give me

 

[Jennewt]

If you are using "simple tubs" (as opposed to an established, cycled tank), I would recommend occasionally wiping out the inside of the containers, in addition to the full water changes.

In a group of 27 axies, I might expect to lose 1 or 2. But losing 2 in a single day is a bit more worrisome, as it suggest some environmental factor as opposed to genetic defects.

Do you happen to know if your local tapwater (I assume that's what you use) is hard or soft?

 

[Bellabelloo]

At the start I had maybe over 40 and had few larval deaths on a daily basis , as they got bigger this diminished ( except for me accidently cooking half my brood ..put on top of cooker and the ring was on). Yours are newly hatched so I don't think its too unusual. It may be that they didn't get to the food. Some of mine would get air bubbles in their gut , a few of these died some recovered.
I raised mine in 2 shallow trays with lids, did daily water changes with dechlorinated water and wiped them out after each clean . I fed twice daily with home grown brine shrimp to start with and then moved onto daphnia, blood worm and mosquito larvae.

 

[bukowsky]

as we started out breeding with the first larvae of our first axo dame we've been told that more than 80 % won't make it ... so we decided to pick up 44 eggs ... and at the end we had 41 juvenile axos ... nowadays we just pick up 6 to 10 larvae and they'll ordinary all make it into life.

 

[Genome42]

im pretty sure its hard as the inside of the kettle doesn't look to good! but is there anyway for me to check and how do i adjust the water hardness to make it better for them if it isn't hard enough?
i have them in little containers at the moment with ~5 in each.

 

[bukowsky]

we don't use an extra mini axo tank ... we just take an ordinary cycled tank [Hamburger Mattenfilter] with snails and guppys to eat the rest of the brown shrimps the mini axos won't eat anymore. In my opinion this should be the most stable conditions to get. pH is 7,6 to 7,8, overall good water quality by the waterworks over here in Germany.

 

[Kaysie]

With good care, you should expect a nearly 95% survival rate with axolotl eggs. Anyone who's losing 80% off the top is doing something WRONG!

Genome, they sell water hardness kits (just like ammonia and nitrite, etc). You can also take it to a good pet shop. To harden up the water, bird grit or limestone will help.

 

[Genome42]

i had a look around on the internet and i think my water may actually be soft! (I guess the kettle must just be extremely old or something :S) so i will get a kit and see if i can adjust the hardness.
The rest seem ok at the moment so it was hopefully just a small blip and the remainder will be fine.
Thanks for the help.

 

[damien]

I lost about 50% in my first batch, and for some idiotic reason 100% in the second one. It was Wooper's first time she had eggs, and the second time there were only 10 eggs in the tank.
What I did wrong the second time, I don't know. The first time it could've been inexperience, but the second time I did everything the same as the first time, but none of them made it. The larvae's development was also very far apart in the second batch. Only one was growing normally, while the rest just wouldn't grow.

 

[Kudos]

My inexperience killed most of my larvae
I went to hatch all the eggs {big mistake} and couldnt get a secure food souce for the larvae. I did daily trips to a near by wetlands area and got pond bugs {i assume daphnia} but little did i know they ate so much so had a massive famine. At the worst time of the famine i lost up to 70 larvae a day But now i got 20 left that are going strong and are about 2-3inches and 20 from the second batch left (i gave away most of the second batch to a science teacher but they all died).

The moral of this story: don't try and raise all the larvae when a secure food source is not available {actually you probally shouldn't try and raise them all anyway}.

 

[Jake]

I've had good luck with raising my axolotls, I normally raise all of the eggs I get. I just always make sure to have an extra pound of brine shrimp eggs and bloodworms on hand. If you want to raise all of the clutch, you can't take long vacations, and you have to do very regular water changes.