I lost 7 of my 14 babies today :(

Hi all,
Im a bit sad and frustrated today when I found 7 of my 11 day old albino babies were dead when I went to check them this morning. I have 7 wild ones left. Weird that only the albino type died.Trying to retrace my steps as to why it may have happened. Water is changed every day. All have been fed brine shrimp (twice a day) and micro worms. Noticed that the wild type had orange bellys most of the time and the albinos did initially but not so in the last few days. I put their container under a desk lamp light to keep the brine shrimp alive for longer (I could well be wrong but that was the theory behind it) for 14 hours of the day. Do you think the bright light was too much for the albino axies?
Has anyone got any ideas as to why it is so?
MA

Heya MA,
Sorry to hear that they died on you, that's no good at all

As to WHY they died, and specifically only the albinos I don't know. The red belly on a larvae shows that they've been eating and the significant absence thereof indicates that the albinos had NOT been eating - which is likely to be the cause of death. But again, I couldn't say WHY they stopped eating.

Regarding the lighting, I personally wouldn't recommend that much light for that long - axies like it dark even when they're larvae. I suppose it's possible that it stressed them out and they stopped eating as a result... perhaps the albinos are more sensitive than the wildtypes? Dunno, I'm just chucking ideas around now, it's a bit of a curly one. Perhaps someone else has a more definite answer?

Anywayz, I've got over two hundred larvae that I need to move and I'll happily share some with you (free for fellow caudata.org members!). I'm not far from you at all so PM me if you're interested and we can sort something out.

I've just turned off the light!! You may be right Frank. I did have an artificial plant in their container which many of the Albinos hid under but nevertheless they probably didn't want to appear from their dark safe haven to feed. Why didn't I think of that!!

How often do you feed your babies? You must have a few hatcheries operating at once....that's if you feed them bbs. I do remember now that you feed them daphnia which I havent sorted out yet. I did read that it is more difficult to breed Daphnia in winter so I put that idea aside for the time being.

May take you up on your offer Frank. I will continue to nurture these wild babies of mine and when I get a bit more confident in knowing what Im dealing with, I'll let you know.
Cheers
MA

Toptex said:

How often do you feed your babies? You must have a few hatcheries operating at once....that's if you feed them bbs. I do remember now that you feed them daphnia which I havent sorted out yet. I did read that it is more difficult to breed Daphnia in winter so I put that idea aside for the time being.

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Mine get fed every day in the evening, I've got two hatcheries made of upturned 2L bottles running in tandem so I've always got massive quantities of BBS available.
My babies are just getting big enough to start on adult brine shrimp and as of yesterday I've started adding live blackworms to the smorgasboard. It's hilarious watching them go for the worms - they love them!

Toptex said:

May take you up on your offer Frank. I will continue to nurture these wild babies of mine and when I get a bit more confident in knowing what Im dealing with, I'll let you know.

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No probs at all, I'll have them for another week or so depending on how fast they grow. I'll be selling and/or giving them away when they're big enough to go exclusively onto adult brine shrimp and blackworms.