Question: Introduction & questions about my Larvae :)

[Vanessa Joy]

Hi All,

I got given some axolotl eggs by an aquarium shop a few weeks ago because a pair of axolotls they had for sale had laid them. I did work experience there about 7 years ago when I was still in high school and they knew I kept axolotls and had successfully raised a few hundred larvae. One of the store women didn’t want to give some of the eggs away though, as she was determined to raise them herself, which would have been fine – except that I asked her whether she had her Brine Shrimp hatchery all set up and if not, would she like some of my brine shrimp eggs as I had plenty to share. She quickly replied that she wouldn’t be hatching live food for them and was going to raise them “her way”, which involved chopping up frozen bloodworm and housing them in tanks filled high with water with gravel flooring. I asked if she had any success in the past raising larvae this way, and she said she had managed to keep “a few” alive, but another store woman told me she had tried to raise axolotls a few times and they had all died. I tried to give her helpful tips about raising the larvae and made suggestions that would give them a better chance at survival but she was stubborn and seemed to have too much pride in thinking her way was right, so I made sure I got as many eggs as she would allow and left. She had around three quarters of the clutch where as I only took one quarter, I haven’t been there since but I assume most of her larvae would have died by now if she didn’t give them live food after hatching and they would have found eating bloodworm even more difficult with gravel in the way, which is pretty sad.

Anyway, my eggs started to hatch on the 24th of June and most were free swimming by the 27th, there were about 10 late comers though, I left them in their plastic tub to develop even though I wasn’t sure if they would because they seemed to be growing so slowly inside the eggs, but a week later they all hatched too and are completely normal – eating like little pigs, they are just a bit smaller than most of the brood because obviously they are younger. In total I had 45 larvae hatch and have had zero deaths so far, which I think is pretty good, more than half the larvae have prominent arm buds (its only the late comers who don’t). I keep expecting one of them to die though because it’s clearly a little deformed and doesn’t swim normally, however it has a good appetite so I am going to see if it can be raised into juvenile-hood. Anyway I’ve got quite a few different coloured larvae; wild types, golden albinos, mellanoids, mellanoid albinos (white) and some whose colour I can’t really define yet, I think they might be either leucistics who haven’t fully lightened up yet, or a noticeably different shade of wild type when compared to the others. I’m lucky to have so many different colours from the one batch of eggs. Their mum was a dark wildtype and there were two males in the tank with her, a golden albino and a leucistic. I assumed because I don’t have any definite leucistics and quite a large number of albino babies that the dad must have been the golden albino? I’m not an expert when it comes to genetics so can anyone give me a definite answer on that? Maybe there is no way of knowing?

Its been a few years since I last raised axolotl larvae and I also just wanted to ask about their regeneration rate, being as young as they are. I noticed about 3 of my larvae had one tip each of one of their gill stalks nipped off so I have housed the larger ones individually now and the smaller ones are in pairs. They are growing quite rapidly on BBS fed twice daily and micro worms as a backup which I have only used once, 100% water change daily. Last night I also had a little accident which I was pretty devastated about. I’ve got six mellanoids, 3 large and 3 small. I have two of the small mellanoids housed together and I was transferring them into their fresh container after their nightly feed using my tiny 3 inch net. Usually its not that hard to catch the larvae as they don’t freak out too much, especially after eating, but as I went to scoop my two little mellanoids out they both freaked out and swam underneath the bar of the net and they did it so quickly that they both knocked the tips off of their top gill stalk on the right hand side. They both have identical injuries, 5 normal gill stalks each and 1 of the top ones damaged. I was pretty upset as it was my net that caused the injury and one of them particularly has really nice long gills and its a shame one of them is now a bit stumpy... and I don’t want them to be impaired or struggle to get enough oxygen through lack of gill for life. So do you guys think their gill stalk (as well as the few I already had with less noticeably nipped tips) will grow back because they are so young? If so how long should it take? None of my babies have any nipped or injured arm buds and the idea of separating them was to prevent any further injury to their little bodies because I want all 45 larvae to stay healthy, so it’s annoying that two more have been injured and even more annoying that I caused it.

I just hope they grow back!

I wanted to post some pictures but every time I upload an image to image shack and then put the link into the attach image section, when i post it shows a weird link with lots of *** ‘s in it instead of an actual photo, what do you guys do to get your photos to display?

[Neil C]

Well done with raising your babies so far and hope you continue to succeed. It does seem likely that the golden albino male is the father judging by the colour of the young. Were the eggs white or black because there are quite a few wildtype looking axolotls in Australia that are actually some kind of albino?

I wouldn't worry too much about your young missing the odd gill as they often grow back very quickly and they will be getting plenty of oxygen from the remaining gills.

Why not loads your photos directly onto this site. Just scroll down to the section that says "manage attachments" below where you type you post and upload them in there.


Regards Neil

[Vanessa Joy]

Thanks for the tip about uploading the files! I didnt even see that manage attachments button at the bottom haha

I've attached a picture of the parents, the Mum was a dark wildtype so her eggs were brown, she wasn't an olive or copper or anything :) I used to have a huge female I thought was a light wildtype back in the day, but when she had eggs they were white, now I look back on it I know she was classified as one of those coppers with the albino eyes people have been talking about lately. I didn't even realise they were unusual or seen as anything 'rare' until a few weeks ago when I saw that breeders in the US have been importing them from Germany and selling them at a higher price. We've been able to get that colour here in Australia for years! Vebas Aquarium in Perth usually has quite a few, I saw some the other day in quarrantine, thats where I got my massive female from years ago, they called her maxolotl cause she was over 30cm and had gill stalks that would have been at least 4cm long each. She kind of had gills like that albino on the axolotl.org site.

Anyway I have attached some pics of my larvae, I had a few slow developing eggs still in a spare tub and wasn't expecting them to hatch but they did last night so now I've got exactly 50 larvae, I'm expecting a few of those that hatched last night to die though as they seem smaller than any of the other new borns I've had and 2 of them are c shaped, maybe they will straighten out?

To my surprise the gills on those babies that I damaged with the net have already starting growing back! I can see them sprouting an extension to their stumps which I was happy about

[Vanessa Joy]

Additional Pics that wouldnt fit on my earlier post... The pictures show the original tub I had them in when they first hatched and now their new housing arrangement of being singular or in pairs :)

[(Dee)]

They look great Vanessa :) mine don't seem as big but I think I have to many together - just too many

[(Dee)]

Some pics of full bellys & the "farm"

[ilomilo]

That's probably one of the cutest little poop factories I've ever seen. Well done and congrats.

[Emily74]

Very nice looking little ones!