Loobylou
New member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2011
- Messages
- 232
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- Location
- Dorset
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Display Name
- Sammy
Had a question for those on the forums who have raised eggs...
I had 26 or so eggs delivered to me from another forum member back in May, out of these 23 were fine when I got them (some had already hatched), then my next door neighbour decided to give me another 9 which he decided were too much work for him, (He had obviously heard me talking about them and thought 'Well if that dozy cow can raise some, I can'). So far we have 29 little larvae which are around 1 1/2 - 2 inches long and are growing their back legs, and the other 3... One leucistic is smaller than the rest and has a problem swimming the right way up, we thought it might be 'bubble belly' like some other people mentioned on these forums so we lowered his water line and make sure that he gets plenty to eat, and he seems to be doing fine so far. We also have 2 little albinos that don't seem to have grown much, they are still only about 1/2 inch long, and they are only just growing their front legs.
We keep them seperate in small plastic boxes with plastic leaves to hide under, and we do full water changes 1-2 times a day (Good job I'm not on a water meter!). They are still being fed brine shrimp, and some of them have started eating thawed bloodworms.
So after my essay my question is this: How many out of these can I expect to survive? Someone told me that larvae have a 50% survival rate (Can't remember who though so I'm not sure if they were talking out their bottom!). People have started asking when I'm going to be selling some, and I don't want to start promising them to people if I'm going to lose lots still. They will be with me for another month anyway, I'm not letting them go until they are eating bloodworms happily and have a full set of limbs, and I want to give people a chance to cycle their tanks.
I had 26 or so eggs delivered to me from another forum member back in May, out of these 23 were fine when I got them (some had already hatched), then my next door neighbour decided to give me another 9 which he decided were too much work for him, (He had obviously heard me talking about them and thought 'Well if that dozy cow can raise some, I can'). So far we have 29 little larvae which are around 1 1/2 - 2 inches long and are growing their back legs, and the other 3... One leucistic is smaller than the rest and has a problem swimming the right way up, we thought it might be 'bubble belly' like some other people mentioned on these forums so we lowered his water line and make sure that he gets plenty to eat, and he seems to be doing fine so far. We also have 2 little albinos that don't seem to have grown much, they are still only about 1/2 inch long, and they are only just growing their front legs.
We keep them seperate in small plastic boxes with plastic leaves to hide under, and we do full water changes 1-2 times a day (Good job I'm not on a water meter!). They are still being fed brine shrimp, and some of them have started eating thawed bloodworms.
So after my essay my question is this: How many out of these can I expect to survive? Someone told me that larvae have a 50% survival rate (Can't remember who though so I'm not sure if they were talking out their bottom!). People have started asking when I'm going to be selling some, and I don't want to start promising them to people if I'm going to lose lots still. They will be with me for another month anyway, I'm not letting them go until they are eating bloodworms happily and have a full set of limbs, and I want to give people a chance to cycle their tanks.
. I half keep thinking that I've done something wrong, but seeing as they never grew and they are kept exactly the same as the rest of them I'm guessing they probably had some defect that we couldn't see.