Question: They've just laid eggs. Do I have everything right?

[Nikitine]

My axolotls have just laid eggs, the female is wild type and the male is albino. Some of the eggs are fully brown, some white and some a bit of both so I should get some interesting colours if all goes well!

I just wanted to check if I have everything right as I've never had eggs before!

She laid them on the plants so I've moved them into another small tank. I have a couple of other tanks free ready for when they hatch.

Here is what I plan to do:

- Do a small water change everyday for the eggs.
- Get a pump and a small airstone for the eggs tomorrow.
- The water needs to be dechlorinated when water changing.
- After they've hatched and eaten the yolk, I'm going to feed them daphnia or small brine shrimp. And feed them twice daily. And move onto frozen blood worm at about 10 days.
- Separate them by size when they get to about 2cm in length

It's hard to count but I'd say she's laid about 50ish. This is quite a manageable number for me (assuming they all survive) as I work in an aquatic/exotic pet shop and the owner already said he'd buy some if they lay eggs and I can ask around other pet shops in the area and a few of my friends will want some.
Working in a pet shop means I have access to food as well so I won't have any problems in keeping up with feeding.

Hopefully some of them will survive! I'm not expecting too much with it being my first batch of eggs.

Does anybody have any advice/tips?

Thank you!

 

[Silver]

I could be wrong, but I think the typical recommendation is to avoid airstones/filters. Jist do daily water changes with dechlorinated water and they should be fine

 

[Skunk]

How are the little guys doing?

I've had some hatchlings for the last two weeks My first eggs! I was feeding them "decapsulated" brine shrimp eggs, which filled up their little bellies nicely, and now they're onto daphnia as it was a bit too big for them to start off with. Out of my 100+ eggs I had around 90 or so hatchlings, and have lost a few on the way sadly. But I suppose in the long run, you only want the strongest; although I'll do my best for all of them!

My next move is to get them into separate tanks as they get bigger.

Quite a cool idea I heard that another breeder uses is those 4 drawer plastic storage things (like below), with a couple inches of water in each, and an air stone split into each one to stop the water from going stagnant. Moving the axolotls around as they get bigger so they're all relatively the same size in each drawer. Pretty clever use of space, easy to clean, easy to move around.