Question: For those whose Axolotls live in a Walstad Planted Tank...

[hacelepues]

Woah. Lots of new posts since I was here last.

I've now set up two Walstad-style 5.5 gallon tanks, one with five White Cloud Mountain Minnows and a few American Glass Shrimp (and a lonely, but huge [1" or so] Red Cherry Shrimp), and another with just American Glass Shrimp - who had five babies. :O

The five WCMMs managed to have 40 or so babies about 2 months ago, and the 13 in the tank now (yes, that's way too much, I know :O) have just had another load - probably more like 60 this time. :O It's time to get a bigger tank soon.

I have mulled this over a bunch over the last few months, and what I've been thinking is this:

• Put the dirt down.
• Lay cheesecloth over it, and tuck it in on all sides.
• Cover with sand/rock, whatever.
• 'poke through' the cheese cloth (maybe with a knife first) to plant the plants.

I was originally thinking geotextile fabric with sand siliconed on to it, but I think that's too much of a barrier between the sand and the dirt - detritus/rotting junk is ideally supposed to be able to permeate the sand and find its way down to the dirt to 're-nutrient' it.

HOW do you get your WCMM to breed??? I've been trying for a couple of months and no babies are to be found.

 

[Coldnorthtoy]

I was considering using hessian as a barrier to stop the axolotls digging the plants up, let us know how you get on with the cheese cloth.

I had also considered hessian - or burlap, as I know it - however, one of the considerations for this barrier layer is that it really should be food-grade, or it may contain chemicals that could kill the inhabitants. Many of the burlaps are 'rot-proofed', which I don't imagine is very good for living things. :happy:

I think, no matter how you cut it (ha!), a natural fibre barrier will rot, and may rot rather quickly, which means it may have to be synthetic.

I've just discovered that the froggy vivarium people use fibreglass window screen to separate their substrate layers and to allow water drainage, and Zoo Med even makes a product for this purpose, so I think it'll be fibreglass bug screen.

I may just use the Doctor's 20-Long to try this out over the holidays, as a new (bigger) tank isn't really in the budget right now. Lots going on though, so we'll see.

 

[Coldnorthtoy]

HOW do you get your WCMM to breed??? I've been trying for a couple of months and no babies are to be found.

Lots of plants, good water flow, Lots of food, good temperature (~21C, I think), colder-than-existing-water water changes (very infrequently, thanks to the plethora of plants).

I also think that 'good food' - I've fed them frozen brine shrimp a few times - may have triggered it too, but I'm not sure.

Obviously, one must have both male and female minnows, too.

 

[Coldnorthtoy]

I used about a 1/2 inch of soil, capped with a 1/4 inch of sand. It's been set up for almost a week and has been doing really well. My axies haven't uncovered the soil, and they only uprooted one plant that seemed to be in one of their favorite places to move around a lot. I've got about 12 other plants in there and I've already noticed significant growth in the past few days. The plants have put out tons of roots!

How's the substrate holding up? Has the axolotl dug through to dirt yet?

 

[sphynx]

This is a realllly old thread, but i'd like to bring it back to life with some questions/thoughts...

Has anyone else tried to have a walstad tank for their axolotls?? also the people who were part of the thread.. or .. whoever really.. how do you keep your plants rooted?

I'm seriously thinking about doing this (honestly the only reason why my tank is still bare bottomed.. ) and I'm mostly just stocking up on plants, floating ones for now, then i'll plant a seperate smaller tank until i get enough, then planting here I come.

Although before i do all of this, i did want to know how others succeeded, or .. didnt.?

 

[emmyk]

Mines a walstad! Worked really well until the darned brown algae happened. Killed all my plants. I'm gonna get new lighting and re plant soon. Tank needs a deep clean anyways. So just make sure to balance the lighting well so the plants thrive and the algae doesn't. And bury them deep

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[sphynx]

many of the plants i own how have rhizomes and i can't really bury them deep... any suggestions on plants that i could really plant deep? I'm mostly planning to attach the rhizome plants to driftwood,rocks, and other random things then placing them somewhere.

 

[STCxB]

I use dwarf hair grass and that doesn't seem to mind being buried in my sand about ½".