Breeding Question

Hi just curious but what are some things to have handy when axies have eggs and for when you are raising them? thanks also what foods do members use for newly hatched larvae

I keep the following:

1. A collection of icecream containers (always useful for transferring eggs to when moving from tank) - also handy for separating larvae into smaller numbers and much easier (first time round especially) for cleaning/feeding when raising larvae.
2. Plenty of water ager/conditioner for waterchanges.
3. Brineshrimp eggs and salt (always a good stopgap if there is no live microfood for larvae)
4. Baking soda for cleaning containers.
5. Spare turkey basters. For feeding or moving hatched larvae and food. I don't mix the main tank ones with larvae ones - and always handy to have spares in case older ones become defunct/damaged (or like my kids used to do = toss them somewhere in the garden).

One of my friends keeps plastic honey jars - so he can post of unwanted eggs to prospective new breeders rather than get rid of them locally or cull them.

Basically that's it.

Foodwise: For newly hatched larvae initially baby brineshrimp eggs, daphnia, ready supply of small baby bloodworm (since finding out where to find them and how to harvest/separate them). During the summer we collect the small mozzie larvae (a mm or so in size), if we have axie larvae to feed, it always goes down a treat, an easy source and mozzie buckets are kept at the bottom of the garden (not too close to the house). As they get larger/older we add the larger mozzie larvae and bloodworm as well as baby earthworms which hatch from the worm eggs in our wormfarms/compost bins.

Thanks for that just thaught id prepare myself with lots of info im guessing this will work with newts as well if they turn out to be male and female?

would newly hatched axie lavae eat live white worms straight away after they have eaten there egg yolk?

Not sure how big the white worms are - never tried them. Only used microworms, which I personally found a bit frustrating (at least with brineshrimp you can definitely see which ones have eaten as their bellies turn orange and are rounded).

The axie larvae do take a few days (probably 1-3 days) to eat their yolk (white in their belly) and need very tiny live food in their tank with lowered water levels for the initial week to 2 weeks so the food is close by. If the food is bigger than 1mm or so the food may be ignored during the first week (axie larvae are approx a cm in length upon hatching) till they grow large enough to attempt to swallow it. During this time they can die of starvation - hence the reason brineshrimp is an excellent backup (food is microscopic and can be hatched inside any time of the year).

Daphnia is also fine to feed. The adults may not be eaten, but if left in the container they will breed, they don't die off and foul the water within hours like brineshrimp. Any tiny daphnia offspring will be consumed by axie larvae.

EDIT: I forgot to add this link in my last post = it will give you more of an idea about what to feed: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml

thanks for the link i have micro worms as well but i cant even see the blinkin things hopefully i can master raiseing daphnia in march