Help please?

Hi,

My to lotls Axol and Rose are laying eggs outside in the fishbowl. I've only had them a couple of months, i was not expecting this!

I read on this website that they can lay upto 1000 eggs, what am i to do with so many!?!?!?

Hi, hop over to here:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/793/23978.html?1159650596

The eggs and breeding section, you can post there, and also scroll down and read up on other threads, there's heaps of great info over there.

Thanks,

After two days of racing about the tank and a huge appetite, tonight they are really quiet. I can't see any trace of anything, could she have laid them in their cave?

Have you checked the cave, otherwise they could have eaten them.

They didn't eat all night, because they were going for midnight strolls hand in hand (joke, but it looked like it).

They have floated about and caught some fish, rose watched some tv and they seem to have gone to bed. Axol is having a float as i type, catching some fish.

I will check the cave in the morning, when there is more light. Will they still eat them if they have plenty of fish to catch?

Yes, if you leave eggs in the tank the parents can and will eat them. Food is food! If this is their first batch of eggs she may not have lain so many and you might find in a few weeks there will be more egglaying.

(Message edited by kapo on October 01, 2006)

Even if they have other fish? They like the fish.

In my opinion she is still quite fat.

As I said food is food, I've seen ours swallow an axie poo (we don't have feeder fish), they snuffle smell, eat. ) Also, eggs don't move, like fish so if it was there and they were hungry; could have been eaten.

Maybe your axie didnt lay many. Did you actually see the eggs or was it spermatophores you saw. He drops the sperm and she picks it up to fertilise the eggs then lays eggs later (day or few days later). So she either has laid a few (and they've been eaten or she hasn't yet laid any yet.

(I think Alex, another kiwi his axie laid only a few eggs first batch, then 2 weeks later laid another batch loads more.)

Do you have any plants they may have gotten attached to?

Are they in a fish bowl or fish tank?

Ok, but they do make choices about food.

I have large and small fish, and the big ones are only in there because she wouldn't stop eating for days. She would have eaten 20 neon tetras all to herself. I came out one morning and she still had the tail hanging out of her mouth before it got cold. She woken when i came out and finished eating it. They chase the small fish around the bowl, hunting.

THey got disrupted yesterday, that could have been why they were less active tonight. Also, it was sunny and Axol is a golden albino, he doesn't come out when the sun is bright. If anything, it is him who isn't into it.

I have a plastic plant, it could have gotten attached to it they had knocked it to the other side of the tank for a couple of nights.

They are in a fishbowl, it is quite large but it is still a fishbowl.

I still haven't checked the cave (they are sleeping), so they probably ate any if they were in there. I'm pretty sure that she isn't finished, the sperm is brown jelly stuff? If so there is some there this morning. Either that or they have the runs :-/

She's a little narky.

As has been said, food is food, and it is advisable to remove the mother and father after spawning. Although Axolotls don't do much about cannibalism, it could happen...
Try feeding your Axies live (=pref.)/freeze dried food like brine shrimp and bloodworm, they just might need a change in food as well.
Plastic plants are good enough as they don't rot and she'll attach her eggs to that, but you might want to put some slate or rough pieces of stone on the bottom for them as well in case you haven't, to help the male to deposit it's spermatophores.

Good luck and keep us posted !

Silver

Ok, thanks.

For the most part, she seems to have calmed down from the weekend when they both couldn't sit still. They are hungry again.

I tried to give them some turtle meal, which they used to eat before i gave them fish (and previous to that the worm). They wont look at it now (the turtle meal). They haven't had worms in about a month, mostly because i don't like how putrid it can leave the water if you don't get all the worms out. I was still pulling worms out of the water a good 3weeks after the last time they had had it.

As long as i keep a good number of small fish in the bowl, they always are satisfied and look forward to me popping a little placky bag in the water. Rosey took a milli second to down one tonight, but i will try and give them some variety. What do lotls eat in the wild?

I couldn't wash the revolting brown stuff off my net (not water soluble?), and the thought of having lotl sperm near my person turns my stomach. I'm still not sure if that is what it is.

I checked the cave, as i thought i noticed some action going on in there. As it turns out they are using it to catch the fish when they go in there to hide. Axol doesn't like the big ones, and i have some great footage of a fish making a quick escape. No sign of any eggs, just a gooeyfied net.

In the wild, axolotls eat various invertebrates. They inhabit fishless waters.

Spermatophores look like little clear volcanoes with a white blob on top. They're maybe 1cm tall or so. They're not brown.

"Brown jelly stuff" sounds like bolus: regurgitated food. If they're offered too much food, they'll gladly eat it, and then throw it up later.

Ok, that explains a lot. How much should they eat if they are about 20cm long?

See attachment

At that size I feed about 10cm of earthworm 3 times a week.