Another feeding question

[(Dee)]

my 1st lot of eggs hatched 9 days ago. I started the bbs & was lucky enough for them to hatch & have been hatching new batches every 24hrs.
when the bbs hatch, I can see them moving around. i rinse & then feed BUT i never see a feeding frenzy & even with a magnifyer I dont see orange bellys

the axies bellies dont seem bigger but their gills are growing & their heads look bigger? would they be dead after 9 days if they were not eating ???

thanks

[Vanessa Joy]

I have 34 babies who started hatching on the 24th of June and the last hatched on around the 26th... So that makes them about 9 to 11 days old, similar to yours :) It seems unusual that yours have been alive so long and you havnt seen them eating, its quite noticable as they jerk upwards and forwards when they are catching the BBS, and then after about 15 mins they should have quite plump little orange bellies, and its all visible to the naked eye. I sometimes use a torch on the darker babies if I'm unsure whether they have eaten, there are also 3 of mine that were born a lot smaller than the rest and 1 that has a noticable deformity in regards to the shape of its head and spine, and then there are 2 who appear normal and who I do see eating, but for some reason their bellies don't appear very big or orange like the others - and they are growing at a slower pace. The 3 tiny babies are all eating and catching up to the bigger lot so I think they are normal, just small, and the one with the deformity eats like a pig and is growing so I am letting it try his/her luck at survival, but maybe your babies are like the last two I mentioned who look normal but who don't seem to get orange bellies... they eat but they aren't as savage as the others and I have to watch very closely to make sure they do, and they are starting to fall behind growth wise... I'd say if they weren't eating anything at all then they would be dead by now, unless they have hatched prematurely and are still digesting their yolks and living off of that. Can you see the yolk in their bellies if you shine a torch over them? I noticed that my premature babies that hatched first took longer to start eating because they digested their yolks, where as the later hatchers had almost already done that and were ready to eat within 24 hours and at the same time the prematures were ready (which for them was around 2 to 3 days of not eating what I offered)

Is this your axolotls first spawn? Because apparently sometimes babies in first spawns sometimes don't develope properly or as typically as those born from mums who have spawned before. Although if your babies are still alive after 9 days and definatley growing (mine are noticably bigger now and are close to getting arm buds) then I'd say they should be okay as long as you keep up with the BBS and the water changes :) have you checked to make sure your BBS are moving around/nice and active :)

[Vanessa Joy]

See here is a pic I took on my iphone yesterday of 3 of my babies, a white albino, a golden albino and a melanoid.. It was taken before their night feeding and you can see the white still has quite a lot of BBS still undigested in its belly, you can see a bit of orange on the golden and its hard to see any on the darker baby, are yours different colours? Because you should definatley be able to see the orange in the light coloured babies :)

[IMG]http://img560.**************/img560/5884/babiesh.jpg[/IMG]

[Vanessa Joy]

Does anyone know why my image wont show up It shows up in the reply box but then when i click post it just has a weird link with *** 's in it... i uploaded my pic to image shack to get the link...

[(Dee)]

Thanks for replying Vanessa the majority of the babies are quite dark, maybe that why? When I look into their containers, I can see moving bbs BUT I think I have also sucked up a lot of unmatched eggs that lie on the bottom !!!
I stare at them for hours & have 5 different containers based on the days they hatched. I have seen them do the feeding "twitch" maybe I am to blind to see their bellies

A new batch of bbs are nearly ready for harvesting - i have increased the salt level & left these for more than 24 hrs. Fingers crossed a greater percentage wil hatch & I can flood the axies with even more food.

[(Dee)]

P.s not sure about uploading the pics. Hope someone can help - I would love to see your babies

[Vanessa Joy]

I have managed to post some pictures of them in another thread called Introduction and Questions about my Larvae :)