Putting them back together and other questions..

F

frank

Guest
Well, it's been five weeks now and my babies are all hanging out, separated in little bird feeders hung off the side of the tank (so they stay the right temp) and fed daphnia and they are THRIVING!!!!! Yay! So thanks for all your advice.... and the one that survived from the last lot (Maxolotl) is now three cm long and he's doing well.... so my next question is, how long before I can put them together again? When do they stop being cannibalistic? Also any advice for the daphnia, I've tried putting in adult daphnia so it would have babies for the fry to eat, but they end up snapping at it and it dies before it gets a chance to have babies, what do other people do?
 
Congrats on the new babies Frank.
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I always fed my young axolotls on newly hatched brine shrimp until they were big enough to eat blood worms.

In my experience you really can't put them back together until they are about 5" - 6" long and even then they might nip at each other some. The better fed they are and the more room they have, the less likely they are to go after each other at this size.

I kept mine in large plastic containers and sorted the young axolotls into them by similar size as they grew. At about 3"-4" I kept 6 to a sweater box size container and had really good luck. My house was covered in plastic containers but I was able to keep several hundred young until they were big enough to find new homes for.
 
I agree with Cynthia Frank, i'd feed them something bigger than daphnia when they get 3 or 4 cm or so and as long as they're well fed you could put them together at about 6".
 
I've bought some axolotl pellets that I have crushed and put in with Maxi, but he doesn't seem to show much interest in them, he's been fed exclusively on daphnia so is used to live food, how do you help them make the transition from live to dry food? Does it help to put a few daphnia in as well?
 
I did the transition more or less from one day to the other ... at least with 'Max' (see pics section). The others are still too small to go after the pellets.

At first he spat them out but after a while, he accepted them as food and he's now acting pretty much like his parents, noticing when my hand full of goodies is hoovering over the aq
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With regards to keeping them together, you should be very careful that all of them are about the same size ... and above all, that the head of one doesn't fit in another one's mouth.

2 days ago one of my youngsters has been caught in the act of trying to swallow one of his bros/sis that was about 2/3 his own size. Luckily enough, the smaller one survived.

I'm now thinking about keeping them all separated until all of them have become large enough not to go after each other.
 
try adult artemia. I used to put a couple of bags in each day when my two wildtype 4-5cm long. They grew very quickly.

But as always supplement your staple food with other things for variety.
 
I've not had many problems keeping them together. At the moment i have 15, 5-6" wildtypes and they don't seem too bothered about each other. Also i think i'm the only one on this forum who doesn't use dry foods. They get few maggots now and then, crickets, waxworms and earthworms.
 
Main problems with putting axolotls together arise when you house wildtypes with colour mutants. The wildtypes have a tendency to bite the mutants. Wildtypes are inherently more aggressive any way - I've seen it so many times over the last 5 years and I've heard it from others.

So, I would say most colour mutants will live rather peacefully together, but don't put them in with wildtypes.

5-6" (13-15 cm) is a relatively safe size to mix animals, but wildtypes may bite right up to 20 cm / 8 inches.
 
Andrew, no one on this forum uses 'dry' foods. Pellets are moist and sinking, earthworms are obviously moist, waxies are living... I'm not sure what you were going for there.
 
Kaysie, i was referring to Franks comment on making the transition from live to dry food. I realize pellets are moist/wet when they're put in to the water, i assume they're dry until then?
 
I've never used pellets. But still, more people use worms than pellets.
 
I only said that because most the axie threads i read talk about using dry foods(pellets)I prefer live food but each to their own!
 
to my knowlege, the pellets are moist when you get them, like wet cat-food.
 
I have removed several posts here, as the discussion had degenerated. Facts are fine. Opinions are fine. But comments directed at other people personally are not fine.
 
Thx Jen, glad to see even when i'm unable to get here as often as i want others are stepping into the breech.

The rest of you behave yourselves or the mod-squad will come calling.
 
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