Question: New to breeding what do I need? Please help

[AshSeek]

I am getting into breeding my axolotls, I just am wondering what all i need throughout their stages and possibly a process to raising them.

Mostly i'm wondering what things (tubs/air bubbler things/food/hides/tanks. etc.) or whatnot i need for properly raising axoltols..



any advice would be great.

Thank you,
Ashley

 

[punkette]

Re: New to breeding what do i need? Please help

for the food you'll need daphnia and brine shrimp eggs, along with an air pump to make them hatch because the babies need freshly hatched food

 

[Petersgirl]

Re: New to breeding what do i need? Please help

I had to find this out myself as my axolotls recently laid their first batch of eggs. So, here's a basic list...

* BBS or Daphnia, with an air pump (not an airstone) and a basic container such as a bucket or tank. They need 50% water changes every week with dechlorinated, aged water and will feed on specialist foods, mushed up pellets or decaying plant matter. John Clare has an excellent article on raising Daphnia for food in Caudata culture that is well worth checking out. (IMPORTANT: You must harvest your Daphnia weekly in order to prevent overpopulation, never use water that hasn't been dechlorinated on them as it will kill them, and only wash your hands with water, not soap, before dealing with Daphnia as the soap is toxic to them).

Daphnia

A Quick Guide to Culturing Daphnia in a Bucket - YouTube (culturing daphnia in buckets).


* Tubs for the eggs and larvae, preferably lots of tubs. Your eggs will hatch in 14-20 days depending on the temperature you keep them at (lower temps mean longer hatching time). When the larvae start to develop limbs at 2 and 3 weeks, you will need to separate them into small groups or even individual tubs. At three weeks they can eat defrosted bloodworm but until this point they will need to be fed LIVE daphnia or BBS (they have very little sense of smell and rely on the snap reflex at this young age).

* Plenty of dechlorinated, aged water, both for the food and the larvae, as they will require daily water changes.

* Your trusty turkey baster.

This, I think, is pretty much it for a basic list.

When my axolotls bred, I saw spermatophores around the tank and the female laid the very next day. I removed the eggs from the tank into a dishwashing bowl with dechlorinated, aged water.

The eggs will probably hatch in 14-20 days as mentioned above. The larvae will then emerge and will not need to be fed for 24 hours, as they will feed on the yolks in their stomachs. After 24 hours it is important to feed them some live food as they may grow bubbles in their stomachs if they do not eat. The babies will also need daily water changes after meals and it is worth remembering that BBS will foul the water more quickly than Daphnia, which will swim in the babies' containers until eaten. You can remove the larvae into separate containers to clean the containers, or, have a rotating system whereby you have 2 containers constantly filled with dechlorinated water and you simply alternate them the next day.

The babies will need to be fed this way for three weeks. When they grow their front and back legs and two and the end of three weeks respectively, they can begin to eat dead food such as defrosted frozen bloodworm. If you have not separated the larvae up until this point, now would be a good time to start. As the larvae grow it may also be worth thinking about putting them in permanent tanks. Be warned that sand is not advised for very young axolotls as they may eat it: a small tank with a small filter, such as a PF Mini with a popsock over the inlet, is ideal. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of a filter, you can continue to do daily water changes. Continue to feed bloodworm until the axolotl is around 5", when you can begin to feed earthworms and other supplementary foods.

I hope this helps a little. I may not have covered everything and feel free to add in anything that you feel I've missed or got wrong. This is my first batch and they haven't hatched yet so I'm not that experienced with breeding, but this is kind of my plan as my eggs hatch and grow.

These two sites, both by John Clare, were invaluable to me when I started writing up my Care Guide, which is being given to any new owners who take any eggs or babies from me:

http://www.axolotl.org/breeding.htm
http://www.axolotl.org/rearing.htm

That said, if you want to give away eggs or larvae, I would definitely recommend writing up a Care Guide for them unless you're sure it would be preaching to the converted

 

[AshSeek]

Re: New to breeding what do i need? Please help

Thank you both for your wonderful advice. it doesn't seem too hard

 

[auntiejude]

Re: New to breeding what do i need? Please help

You need:
a male and female axolotl
plastic or glass tubs
lots of dechlorinator
brineshrimp eggs, bubbler, plastic bottles
lots of bloodworm
luck

Job done.

(But seriously - read up on raising babies on axolotl.org)

 

[Petersgirl]

Re: New to breeding what do i need? Please help

I think it's a lot of small efforts that can be hard to keep up with when you have work, family commitments, etc, so it's not recommended to raise your own or breed if you have a lot of commitments. If you have plenty of dedication and time I should imagine it's mostly a pleasure, but my eggs are still only on Day 2 so I don't want to speak too soon!

Also, here's a fabulous guide to raising BBS that was on the top of the forum. I just noticed that I'd been a little biased in promoting Daphnia.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...rine-shrimp-hatching-harvesting-tutorial.html

 

[AshSeek]

Thank you all i used daphnia my first time... when can you switch them to blood worms/ blackworms (cut up)

 

[Petersgirl]

I was told you can start feeding defrosted bloodworm/blackworm when they have both sets of legs (at the end of three weeks).

 

[Petersgirl]

Ooh! Also, I found a nice way to raise cheap baby axolotl food!

You can buy something called Spirulina Powder (it's basically powdered algae) but be sure, if you buy it off Amazon or similar, to look for it in 'Pet Supplies,' as it's also sold as a human food supplement and costs quite a lot in such a pure form. I found a 50 gram bag of Spirulina powder on Amazon for about £3.64. This means, if you keep your water quality good, you can keep BBS for much longer. It's basically food for both Daphnia and Brine Shrimp. You can also get BBS eggs on Amazon for £6 odd, but shop around as there are a lot of products on Amazon that seem to be overpriced (6g of BBS for £18? Are you kidding? ) and also some products that seem next to useless to axolotl raisers (such as the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp which is basically dead BBS in a liquid mixture and therefore no good to larvae).

Just a few hints I picked up while shopping for my new babies this afternoon. Bought this way, a BBS kit costs £10 or less (that said, there is a full Hatchery kit on Amazon containing eggs, a hatchery, food and salt for the water that costs £13, but it relied on being hooked up to a tank and I got the impression that the BBS hatch into the tank, which means salt water. So no go for me). Now all I need are two soda bottles, an air pump with a twin valve and salt mix, to make the great hatchery here:
Caudata Culture Articles - Microfoods

 

[auntiejude]

You can buy something called Spirulina Powder (it's basically powdered algae) .... This means, if you keep your water quality good, you can keep BBS for much longer.

But BBS should be fed to axie larvae within 24 hours of hatching - the longer they live the less nutritional value, as much of what you're trying to feed your axies is the yolk attached to the BBS. There's not any point trying to keep them alive for any longer than necessary.

If you're trying to raise brineshrimp to adult you can use spirulina, and to feed daphnia it's good too.

 

[Petersgirl]

Ooh. I'd forgotten they had to be fed fresh. Especially seeing as they get too big for a baby axxie after a while.

Thanks for the edit, Auntiejude. I guess if people wanted they could always raise one hatchery to adulthood in case they wanted to feed other fish or amphibians.

But Auntiejude is right - good for raising Daphia rather than BBS Sorry for the mistake.

Also, a question...how often do you feed the larvae? I spoke to a local breeder, and she suggested feeding the larvae every 2 hours, while a few articles I have read say once or twice a day, as much as the larvae will eat in 15 mins. What is your preferred method? Also, cleaning. Do you do 100% water changes daily, or just suck up the muck and clean the bacterial film with a sponge and do water changes more sporadically? If you do 100% w/changes, how do you do so without injuring the delicate larvae?

Sorry for all the questions but I've seen lots of different answers to this.

 

[piaalexa]

I raised about 6 baby axolotls last year and it was incredibly fun! I just kept them in a tupperware with a few floating plastic plants (no hides). I boiled water in my kettle daily and put this aside overnight before using it for my axolotls (DONT put hot water in your baby axe tank, obviously!) I felt the boiling the water removed any potential diseases, bacteria etc. in the tap water, and also helped speed up evaporation of chlorine out of the water. I never used an airstone in their tupperware, but kept the water level quite low (think my tupperware was 1/3 full or so) to encourage a lot of gaseous exchange with the air. When I cleaned their tank (every few days when I was using daphnia, and daily when I was using BBS) I removed their floating plants, and poured the water out (with my babies) over a fine sieve. This caught my babies and took the dirty water away. Then I immediately placed them in a small bucket with clean water while I replaced their water in their tupperware (sometimes I rinsed the tub with some boiling water before adding fresh water) and then poured them back. They never seemed too traumatized by the experience. My experience from feeding them is the daphnia are a lot easier to use as you don't need to clean the baby axe tank everyday (dead BBS foul the water rapidly) as they can live alongside the baby axolotls until they get eaten They are less hassle as you'll have to be hatching BBS everyday (which means having 2 batches running at a time). I normally fed them once a day when I was using BBS, but with the daphnia I just replaced them as needed.

However, my daphnia culture was surprisingly difficult to keep going. Don't use an airstone in the daphnia culture as the air bubbles get trapped under their body scales and they float to the surface and eventually die. I had mine for about 2 weeks when the daphnia suddenly died (I now know I should have kept two going at once) I had been feeding them spirulina but I did something wrong (not sure what). Luckily I managed to culture some BBS for them, but sometimes my BBS hatchery did not work either. So some days I had to resort cutting up bloodworm and feeding them with tweezers by hand. Luckily, due to them being old enough (they were about 2 weeks old at this stage) they learnt pretty fast to take the bloodworm from me, and in fact would swim to the surface with their little beady eyes staring at me as they waited their turn to get a tweezer-full, adorable!

I hope you have fun raising your babies, just remember to have backup options for food in case something goes terribly wrong with either your daphnia or BBS, whatever you choose and you should be fine

 

[Petersgirl]

Thank you for your experienced and helpful reply, Piaalexa! I did want to use daphnia in preference to BBS so I have got some despite the fact it probably won't culture in time.

I have literally just started my daphnia culture today with adult daphnia (a little late, as my axolotls are due to hatch in around 6 days, but they are a backup food for my babies) and will receive my BBS and Spirulina soon. I have the daphnia in a bucket with a piece of airline tubing inside, connected to an air pump on its very lowest setting (no airstone). I have three small bags of the daphnia you get from LFSes inside the tub (I was warned against using this as a breeder said they may contain other organisms other than just daphnia which may eat the larvae, but at this close proximity to hatching I am quickly running out of options).

I have fed them two pinches of fine bran today (as I read in John Clare's Daphnia article that you can feed bran) and am leaving them to munch on it. Is it okay to water change daphnia weekly, at 50% a week? And when I do that, can I use a siphon with a piece of tight tied over the end to prevent daphnia being sucked up? I plan to feed a modest amount of bran until my spirulina arrives once every five days. Does this sound okay?

We have two colonies currently - I have one on the go and my father in law has the other (he is raising two of my eggs!) I will hopefully soon have BBS arriving which I will start hatching once my larvae become really wigglesome.

I really hope this feeding strategy is okay.

 

[rachel1]

I find with my Russian red daphnia magna culture , I get a boom of larvae sized baby daphnia about 2 days after a heavy feeding. Yes, you can clean with something over your siphon to leave the daphnia behind. I start to transition to chopped live blackworms at 1/2", well before back legs develop. I cut them up into 1/4" pieces with scissors. They will also take small bits of thawed bloodworm if it is the thinner diameter worms. They snap them up while going for daphnia and will quickly learn it's food. PS- I would use a water conditioner in the US , as you would have to boil a very long time to remove chloramine that is sometimes added to tap water here.

 

[Petersgirl]

Thanks Rachel1! I used dechlorinated, aged water for my daphnia but I have been told plain warm tap water is fine for BBS and that dechlorinating drops are not recommended for use with BBS. Is that correct in your experience or would you still use dechlorinator for BBS?

I know this sounds daft, but I am a little confused about the BBS hatchery thing on one point. The hatcheries only last two days - why is this? And when you 'rotate' hatcheries, what is it you actually do with the first hatchery? Do you just keep the BBS eggs from the fridge and throw everything else away, then start afresh? Or do you just start completely fresh, with new BBS eggs and everything? Can you reuse the old hatchery?
I've watched so many BBS raising tutorials but they don't explain what to do with the first hatchery when its 48 hours are up, only that you should have a second hatchery set up 12 hours after the first one.

Also, to Ashseek - I am very sorry for hijacking your thread, but so many little questions have evolved as I've been working on my little larvae strategy.

 

[piaalexa]

No problem at all :happy: I learnt a lot from reading the tutorials at the top of the breeding threads page. Here is a really good BBS hatchery tutorial and it literally goes through everything step by step: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...rine-shrimp-hatching-harvesting-tutorial.html

You sound pretty sorted concerning your daphnia culture, I think, but good that you'll have some BBS going while you get the daphnia growing. If you have a pond in your garden you could always put some of your daphnia culture in the pond for the future.

Good luck!

 

[auntiejude]

On hatching BBS:
I don't declorinate BBS hatchery water.
You only hatch what you need, that way there is very little waste.

At room temp (20C) BBS take about 36-48 hours to hatch, hence the '2 hatchery' system. e.g.
Set hatchery #1 up on Monday evening
Set hatchery #2 up on Tuesday evening
Wednesday you feed BBS from hatchery #1 to your axie larvae, and refill #1 with fresh salt water and new eggs
Thursday you feed BBS from #2 and refill
etc

I recommend using decapsulated eggs - a little more expensive than dry eggs, but easy to get hold of, a bit more reliable and quicker on hatching and no egg shells to deal with.

 

[Petersgirl]

Thank you to both of you for your amazing advice! It is much clearer now

Auntiejude, does that mean you basically harvest the newly hatched BBS and throw everything else away (including the unhatched eggs) before adding new salt water and eggs? 50g of BBS eggs arrived today so I am wondering if I will need more to last me the two weeks (the bag looks to contain about 6 level tablespoons of eggs and the hatch rate is 90%). I got confused about decapsulated eggs because on one listing a seller claimed his eggs were decapsulated, then in brackets he had written 'non hatching,' so I daftly assumed that decapsulated eggs wouldn't hatch. That teaches me to do my homework first!

Piaalexa, I really hope my daphnia culture is okay. They're in a large bucket with an airline (I had to attach a peg to the tubing as the bubbles, even on the lowest setting, were quite strong). I have tried bran but to be honest I found they went mad for a pinch of spirulina!

 

[piaalexa]

Keep us updated - hope your babies do well:happy: As for the daphnia, just keep feeding them as needed and making sure their water is clean and you should be fine.

 

[Petersgirl]

I've been doing 50% water changes a week on my daphnia, and it seems to be working. My babies are doing great! All but one hatched (the one that didn't is in a separate container). The only thing I have trouble with is keeping the water clean, but this is probably because I am using a turkey baster >.< I'll try the sieve method tonight.

I'm feeding as much BBS as I can get from one hatchery each day. I sure hope it's enough! Most of them have fat orange bellies though, so that's good I also have lots of good homes lined up (after I had a nightmare of a huge 4 foot tank full of 50 juvenile lotls I was determined they would have nice homes to go to). I have some really beautiful Leucistics and Wilds coming on, I think. I can even see the tiny hearts of the Leucys! So adorable!