Oh no!

[Bellabelloo]

I have just come back from a hideous holiday ( all kids and hubby sick..and I didn't cook!) , and whilst this part of the uk was basking in some sort of heat wave my golden axolotl decided to proove to me that she is indeed a Princess. My tank now resembles a snow storm as she has covered most of it with eggs. I have removed approx 20 to try and raise myself and at present are in a shallow tray .All the eggs that I have seen are white, no dark ( the male is a wild type), one so far has changed from a ball shape to a slight tadpole shape. Jeffers the male is very pleased as he can now snack on the remaining eggs, i watched him gently take a small mouthful as I was trying to work out what to do! . At present I am going to leave most of the eggs as they are , then attempt to remove what I can with the turkey baster/or syphon over the next few days. As my female is still young i am probably going to have to move her into a different tank, or seperate her in some way, or possibly re-home ......

 

[naymo]

Maybe a place a divider in the tank..

 

[russell]

I can rehome if nessasary - im only down the road too!
Best of luck with the littluns!

 

[Bellabelloo]

Thanks for the offer, I'll keep you in mind Russell ( you don't want some eggs then? lol)
I'm a little unsure what to do with her, she is approx 10 months old, and approx 27cm..and clearly mature enough to breed. She only recently developed a very slight grey tinge to the bottom of her toes. My main concern is that she is young and I don't really want her producing eggs so early and affecting her well being. She seems fine at present, eating normally and behaving much the same..maybe hiding pout in her cave a tad more than usual. The eggs are developing really fast , having looked at the embryo photo log they are at the day 6 stage. Today I have ordered brine shrimp and goodness knows what as it looks like I'll have a fair few to feed. I fished out 27 on Saturday to raise and only two have failed to develope so far..The majority of the rest were moved into a seperate tank and whats left has stayed put, and the parents have stopped eating the eggs, typical!
I am now awaiting the aged parents to bring me the much larger tank, hopefully in the next week or two, which I am hoping will be spacious enough to put a divider in ..then the babies ( are they called fry??) can go in the original tank with seperators..well thats todays plan!!

 

[digger]

hi dont know if you got my pm but i would love some eggs if you have some spare.
can pay by paypal acc.

 

[Bellabelloo]

No pm..so pm'd you!

 

[Kaysie]

They're called larvae, just so you know

 

[Bellabelloo]

Thanks Kaysie..and yet another question for you wonderful people!!

Having spent the last hour removing the blighted eggs , and then studying them with my daughters magnifying glass ( cheaper and far better than my expensive one!) I could see the first signs of the gills, also some have a speckling grey pattern on their backs, some also appear to have tiny eyes. All the eggs appeared to be white ( the female is golden/ with no dark eyes, and the male is a lovely wild type. There are far more appearing white so would it be that one parent is recesive?. Please bare in mind it took me forever to grasp the cycling lark..any way now off to study axolotl genetics..nothing on the telly tonight!!

 

[Kaysie]

You'll be able to tell as they grow what color they are. If the male is recessive for albino traits, you'll get some albinos in the mix. If they're both recessive for leucistic traits, you'll have some of those too

 

[Bellabelloo]

ok...looks like i'll have to try and be patient and wait and see... :[

 

[Bellabelloo]

Hatching..

As I was fishing the last few aggs out of the parent tank into the 'give away' tank I noticed some more unusual movement, last night I had noticed for the first time that I have very tiny white worms free falling ( stunt worms!!) , and now I have the first few larvae sprinting around ..so much for hatching and having 24 hours rest...my eggs never read the axolotl instruction book.
Luckily I was woken at an ungodly hour by a very jolly postie with my brine shrimp stuff...great timing. So now I'm brewing shrimp...oh joy!!!!