Question: How often do axolotls breed?

Hi, I have a young adult pair of axolotls, female is wild type, male is leucistic. They spawned quite randomly in May/June, and although the eggs hatched, sadly the young didnt survive. I put them in tupperware containers, did daily water changes and fed them baby daphnia and microworm - not sure if this was the right food as normally I breed tropical fish and that is what I use for them - Never bred axolotls before. I was wondering how often do they breed as Id love to have another go at raising the fry.

Any advice gratefully received

Thanks

There are lots of ideas about how to trick axies into breeding such as messing with daylight length and playing with the temperature.

They breed quite randomly and can do it at any time of year but generally speaking if they are exposed to seasonal light and temperature changes they will usually breed just before the peak of winter and possible again in the spring as long as they are happy and well fed. Bearing in mind they come from Mexico and what is the peak of winter there will be different other continents as far as average temps and day length goes.

So at least once, maybe twice and I don't think you would want to put a female through 3 breedings in a year as they can be quite hard on her.

Mine did their first in early August (our peak of winter) so I'm hoping they will have another go in the next month or 2

Good luck.

Hi
Sorry to hear about the loss of your first batch.
First batches are known for having a very low success rate.

Mine tend to breed with changes of the weather.
April/may July/august and sept/oct were mine.

Mel

Hi, Thanks for the advice, Ill have to try with water changes, affecting the light etc then to try and "get them in the mood".

How can I maximise the chance of the babies surviving next time round?

Many thanks

Hi
Just do what you were doing last time.
Have a look into hatching out baby brine shrimp thats what i use, but many have been successful using daphnia.
The next batch should be stronger than the first.

Good luck

Mel