Help with feeding babies, bbs didnt work

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cathy

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Hi, I have some hatchlings just under 24 hours old, I was tring to hatch bbs but they didnt work, I have another batch on but Iam worried that these wont work either, what else can I do. I live on a property and we have a dam, can I use any bugs out of the dam? I caught some this morning, there were tiny little balck swimming bugs, as small or smaller than a pin head, any ideas if these would be suitable, help would be apprechated.
Cathy
 
I cant see why not.

Do you use any pesticides or fertilizers on the property?
These can poison axies.

I think its a bit too cold for BBS atm.
I had problems aswell.

Aaron
 
Thanks so much for the reply, no we dont use any chemicals that could run off into our water, we have frogs so I am guessing water quailty to be good, I have another batch of brine shrimp on now, so hoping it will work this time. I have placed the baby axolotl into a smaller dish as they are hatching, 23 now, with only a handful left to hatch, it is so exciting, Hope we get through the next few weeks without to many loses.
Regards,
Cathy
 
Hey Cathy,

Aaron's right, it's far too cold at the moment for BBS to hatch normally.
I've got very small aquarium heaters set up in my BBS hatchery ($20 from the aquarium shop) so that the temperature stays warm in there. I'm having huge success with hatching vast numbers of BBS using this method.

_DSC0141.jpg


A pin-head is too big for newly hatched larvae, you're going to need sonething smaller than that - 0.5 to 1mm will be about the biggest they can handle at this stage.

If you really run into trouble and you're in the vicinity of Melbourne I'm happy to throw you some of mine while you get yours hatched - PM me and we can sort it out - otherwise, perhaps see if you can get some Daphnia for them. I know that boilogical suppliers here in Aus sell live daphnia if your pond doesn't have any, again I know of one so PM me for details if you want.

Good luck!
 
I love it when frankie posts up pics of his contraptions! Thanks for the photo, it really is worth a 1000 words. Sorry got to spread rep around but its still another noteworthy post!

Cheers
 
Thankyou guys so much for the replys, the lot I am hoping to hatch at the moment are bubbling away in a light box that I was in the process of making into an incubator, thanks so much for the pictures and the idea about the heaters, I have a spare heater so I will give it a go if I am still unsuccessful with the light box, and madfrankie thankyou so much for your offer, I am a couple of hours away from melbourne but thanks anyway. I went to the pet shop and got some black worm I am going to try and cut it up little, how long can they go with out food? A couple of babys hatched late yesterday afternoon the rest have hatched today.
Cathy
 
sorry ment to ask madfrankie what temp do you have the heaters set at?
Cathy
 
cathy said:
sorry ment to ask madfrankie what temp do you have the heaters set at?
Cathy
Click to expand...

27 Degrees with a salinity of 20-35g/L in the water.

cathy said:
I went to the pet shop and got some black worm I am going to try and cut it up little, how long can they go with out food?
Click to expand...

I've heard others have had success with the chopped blackworm method - Jacquie from here's done it recently and she'd be happy to offer tips, I'm sure (Jacq, you've been named and shamed! :D)
When they're freshly hatched they'll still be digesting the last of the yolk from their eggs for about a day or two but after that they need feeding daily.
 
madFrankie said:
I've heard others have had success with the chopped blackworm method - Jacquie from here's done it recently and she'd be happy to offer tips, I'm sure (Jacq, you've been named and shamed! :D).
Click to expand...

Hrumph - I'll be sure to find a way to thank you for that, Frank :p.

When the BBS didn't work out for me, I used finely cut blackworm as a fall back option. By finely cut, I mean one millimeter sized portions - maximum (the blackworm will stay alive even after being cut up so finely, and the wriggling should hopefully attract the larvae to eat). I did have a few losses as some of the larvae did not adapt well to eating the blackworm; these larvae seemed to be surface feeders more than ground feeders and unfortunately, starved.

Presently I am culturing (and using) daphnia with great success.

But it is a comfort to know I can always turn to the blackworm as a last resort if the preferred live food supply crashes for whatever reason.

Frank, as usual, has given some excellent tips. I hope the BBS works for you, and that your larvae thrive!
 
Hi Cathy,

If you have axie pellets, what you can also try is to crush them into a very fine dry powder (Mortar pestle). The powder will be fine enough to float on the water surface. You would still need to feed live food but the axie powdered pellets can supplement somewhat.

Cheers
 
I feed my babies frozen baby brine shrimp, as well as live, and they seem to be doing great with their orange filled tummies.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thankyou all for you replys, they are currently getting fed very small creatures found in my dam, I realise that this is not ideal but anything to keep them alive, I have tried a couple more batches of bbs in my light box with still no success, our power went out over the weekend for a number of hours so this may have effected them, I have another batch on in the light box and also another batch starting with the aquarium heater method, if niether of these work I will put it down to a faulty batch of eggs. I have cut up some black worm small and tried feeding this, I cant really tell whether they are eating it or not? I am also going to try the very fine crushed pellets, I will do this before a water change, so what they dont eat can be left behind. Thanks again for everyone's input.
Cathy
 
When I had axie babies once, I used a sort of milky solution for feeding fish fry, I dont know if it worked but it seemed to get them through the first stages.

Try putting some pond water and plants in as well these will introduce daphnia, cylops, protozoa and all that stuff into water and can sustain them while you look for daphnia or bloodworms from the shop. We had a birdbath in my old garden with little crustaceans swimming in it I sucked them up with little turkey blaster syringe and put them in the tank they loved them. After all this pond stuff I just bought them brine shrimp and bloodworms for 1 or 2 weeks. I raised them to about 6-7cm and they ate cut up earthworms then and after that they all died from a fungal infection from the heat on their gills along with my adults:(, now I am all the more wiser about heat;)

Peter
 
This might sound a bit macabre, but if you are running out of food, they will eat each other (this happens anyway) and this will probably have you ending up with 3 or 4 really large babys, that if you had no food at all.
 
How long were you leaving the bbs for i find when its colder it can take 3 days.
At the moment its warmer here so mine are hatching overnight.
Altho with a heat supply they shoud definately be hatching.

Can you run thru what you actually did step by step?

Mel
 
HI how are your babies doing did you manage to get a batch of brine shrimp going??
Mel
 
Hi Mel, babies are doing well on dam bugs/creatures smaller than you can hardly see, I have been catching these with a stocking net thingy I ve made up, I have ordered another batch of eggs so it will be very interesting to see if these work, I have tried a number of batch's with different amounts of salt, different types of heat and air tubing, different containers, ect. So I think its a dodgy batch as you would think somewhere out of the different batchs I would have some hatch. Anyhow I best be off to gather some more food for my little ones.
Cathy.
 
Hiya glad to hear they are doing well
Did you also give the bbs upto around 3 days to hatch?

Mel
 
Bbs will hatch at cool temperatures. The last time I was in the bbs business, I was hatching them in my basement, under very low light. It took them 3 full days to hatch out, but they did hatch well enough to be useful. I produced many batches this way. If you have good, fresh bs eggs, they will hatch under almost any conditions. They undoubtedly hatch better and faster when they are warm and brightly lit, but these factors are not absolutely necessary.

Another factor to look at in hatching bbs is pH. They do best at pH 8-9.5. It's worth testing this, both at the beginning of the hatch, and after the hatch. If your water doesn't stay in this range through the whole process, you may need to adjust the amount of baking soda in the hatch mix.
 
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