Lost all my babies

[PaulGilbey]

Hiya,

I recently hatched 20 babies from spawn that were all doing OK until the night before last when I lost over half of them. The rest died last night. All the dead ones seem to be covered with slimey stuff. Any ideas what could have caused this as I have got more spawn, and if I have done something wrong I want to rectify it before these hatch.

I had them in bottled water in a tank 2 1/2" deep. The tank is 12" x 9". Temperature ranged from 65 to 70 degrees, and I had Daphnia in the tank with them all the time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time and help

Paul

 

[kapo]

Did you remove the dead ones straight away? How often do you clean the tank?

When they're dead they do tend to decompose quite fast and will be covered in either slimy stuff or fungus; tails may also appear bent.

Check out the following link, it may give you more of an idea of what could be wrong: www.caudata.org/cc/articles/why_larvae_die.shtml

 

[PaulGilbey]

Thanks for that. What do you think about my choice of water? I keep my fire-bellied toads in it and they are fine. I use "Evian" as it only has 4.5 mg/litre of chlorides and has a pH of 7.2.

 

[kapo]

I don't use bottled water, so I really couldn't say. I either use rainwater (collected in buckets outside) or tapwater with water conditioner drops added.

Temperature may play a factor, I keep my tanks in a cool area (summer here) so it's no higher than 18C/65F approx. I also keep daphnia, as well as mosquitoe larvae in their tanks and do a 20% waterchange daily and spotclean with a turkey baster any waste that collects on the bottom as well.

Did you test the tankwater for ammonia/nitrites after the first lot died?

Do you change the tankwater daily? How old were the larvae ?

 

[PaulGilbey]

I think that may be the problem, I was only doing a partial water change twice a week. They were about 1-2 weeks old. I've already bought an ammonia/nitrite testing kit ready for my next lot. I have got some water conditioner drops that we use on my sons tropical fish tank. In your opinion would I be better off using that?

Thanks again for your help. I want to get it right this time.

 

[Bellabelloo]

When I was raising larvae I had them in a shallow tray ( about 1 inch deep ) and did daily water changes and spot cleaning as they started to produce more waste. My biggest problem with shallow water was that temps will rise quite quickly so you need to be on the ball with that. I used water from the main axolotl tank or the cold water from the hot tap ( before it heats up!!) if I was in too much of a rush. I never tried bottle water though I know of people who do use it with no problems. My main fatalities where caused by me accidently cooking them , but I would get the occasional odd death.

 

[alatriel]

I wouldn't recommend rain water - it is always soft! Tap water is better (if it is hard enough). I think the problem may be caused by soft water. Even if I didn't kill them it coud have weakened their immune system and make them more susceptible to any kind of infection.
I change water every day when I feed larvae with BS, but when I use living daphnia they don't spoil water so much.