Question: How to clean baby axie tank

My first batch of eggs and they actually hatched (well some did anyhow) and they are still living. The problem is that the water needs to be changed/cleaned as there's a lot of dead eggs and dead brine shrimp in there and the water is getting cloudy and starting to smell.

I would usually just use the syphon but I can't see the gold/albino babies and I am scared of sucking them up by mistake.

Is there some other better way to change their water.

Also because there is only about 2" of water in their tank, would a water change stress them too much?

By the way - if anyone would like to take over the rearing of these please let me know... I have posted in the for sale section too. (Geelong, Victoria, Australia)

thanks in advance
Genene

I would add more water to the tank. The more water there is, the easier it is to keep it clean. Fill that enclosure right up!

To do water changes, I use a length of air line tubing. This is kind of slow, but it keeps siphoning from creating a strong current and sucking up your larvae. Another option I use is half inch ID tubing as a siphon. This is large enough, if you suck up any larvae, they end up in the bucket and are easily transferred back out with a brine shrimp net.


To make it even easier, use of a turkey baster for spot cleanings, especially after feeding time is also highly recommended!

Finally, axolotl larvae are cannibalistic to conspecifics, so lots of plants, like java moss is necessary to keep predation to a minimum and the stress levels of these critters low.

Turkey baster or surgical irrigation tool (looks like a turkey baster).

You can also remove the larvae into a separate container and dump the water from the first container, then return the larvae. Basically have two containers and alternate them daily.

-Eva

Turkey baster works for me. I've got some gold babies at the moment, in 2 litre icecream containers. They're in about 4cm of water, I guess. I feed bbs once a day, in the morning before work. Before the feed, I get rid of any detritus in the containers. After work I use the turkey baster to clean out any uneaten bbs and as much of the eggshells as I can without getting silly about it, and replace about 1/4 of the water.

I did exactly the same thing with my wild type bubs who are now five months old and they're all doing great.

Hi Genene

We have our babies separated into their own compartments of a GJ kit type box (like a bits box/fishing tackle box/nut & bolt box etc), which makes using a turkey baster really easy as the compartments are quite small. Just be aware that the little loties may try to scoot up the turkey baster too, we have had a couple accidents because of it.

We got our trays and turkey baster from Fag's Mitre10

We would consider your offer to help raise the babies, esp since we are also in Geelong, but this is our first spawning too so we're still learning.

Dal

Dalabrae said:

Hi Genene

We have our babies separated into their own compartments of a GJ kit type box (like a bits box/fishing tackle box/nut & bolt box etc), which makes using a turkey baster really easy as the compartments are quite small. Just be aware that the little loties may try to scoot up the turkey baster too, we have had a couple accidents because of it.

We got our trays and turkey baster from Fag's Mitre10

We would consider your offer to help raise the babies, esp since we are also in Geelong, but this is our first spawning too so we're still learning.

Dal

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There's ppl from all over the world in this forum and you are in the same town as me - what are the chances!!

My axies have just produced another batch of eggs (already) and I had one spare tank left, so I have given them to my mother to try to grow that batch.

I must say I am getting attached to my babies as they get bigger - it's really exciting!

Any ideas where/how to sell them when they get bigger?

Genene

I'm also taking care of my first clutch and it's so stressful but rewarding c: This thread will help with my cleaning technique though. Any advice about how to siphon?

Eloesia said:

I'm also taking care of my first clutch and it's so stressful but rewarding c: This thread will help with my cleaning technique though. Any advice about how to siphon?

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I use plastic tubs for my larvae, but when I siphon my daphnia tubs, I put a net over the end of my tubing to keep from sucking anything up. Alternately you could stuff a bit of sponge up in a tube so only water will pass through. It would be difficult to remove if your wanted to siphon anything else, though. I would hold your tube up off the bottom, as far away from the larvae as you can get. I only had a few larvae, and I fed live foods, so no brine shrimp debris. I would spot clean with a pipette or baster, then pour off as much water as I could for the water change.