Disaster

I had some baby axolotls as you may know, and i was having great success with them.

HOWEVER.....when i whent on holiday for the week , i returned to a tank full of curled up ,fuzzy axolotl babies wich were a lot smaller than they were origionaly. now i recon this is an osmosis problem ,or it is that conditions what axolotls get when they shrink .

now i put 5 bags of daphnia in before i went and there was still some left when i came back , so dont go accusing me of starving them.

previously when the babys had just hatched and were tiny i fed them on baby brine shrimp that had just hatched.

Dont Use Baby Bine Shrimp , i was using bags of shell less brineshrimp wich you can get from my petshop , when it hathes you snip the edge off and then pour it through a net and wash it , so i did as it said and washed it using a special net , so i assume that the salt came from INSIDE the baby brine shrimp :/

you only learn from your mistakes , but i wish i hadnt made one .... i was so looking forward to raising my axolotls. atleast i will know for next time . :/

What a shame.
Unfortunately young larvae do need feeding twice a day, and their water changed at least daily.Brine shrimp will usually die of quickly one put in with your axolotl larvae. I suspect your absence was the reason.
Home cultured baby brine shrimp are the best option in future, once you get your set ups running it is quite easy.
Hopefully next time you will have much better luck.

You don't mention in this note anything about your set up. I'm sure you've said it before but refresh my memory, please. What was your set up like? How many axies did you have, what size container, what kind of filtration, etc. You also stated that you put 5 bags of Daphnia in the tank before you left. I would have expected that to be sufficient and since you said some remained in the tank when you returned that's probably correct.

It's hard to diagnose a situation when looking at the aftermath. Remember that professionals who raise axies regularly keep them in a Holtfreter's Solution which is a salt solution. Osmosis probably isn't the cause of your calamity. Especially if you want to ascribe the situation to the salt in the bodies of the brine shrimps.

I used brine shrimp almost exclusively (as do many others on this board) to feed larval axolotls. The salt content of any living animal is a factor of how they're designed, not the solution they live in. So, I'd say that the brine shrimp wasn't the cause of you disaster.

Like nearly all of the issues people face with their axies as described on this board I would suspect that your problems revolve around issues of water quality. Water conditions can change so quickly it's amazing. When you're around all the time you make constant "mid-course corrections" that you don't really pay attention to. It's just what you do. When you're gone for a week, a lot can happen.

I'd say that if you have shell less brine shrimp available where you are that it would be a perfectly acceptable food source for larval axies. The Daphnia are another excellent source. Best wishes with your next attempt.

Hi
Sorry to hear about your babies.

I'm curious as to why you mention baby brine shrimp as you say you only fed them this when they were little?
I only use baby brine shrimp with my babies and I have no problems at all.

I suspect it was water quality that killed them.

Mel

my water was out of the axolotl adult tank ,and i had 3 air-stones and a spongy filter thingy in it along with me syphoning and re filling with a turkey baster , and i only used the baby brine shrimp when they were babies because the stuff im using is smaller than a pin head.

i had them in a plastic sort of tank and i had the whole clutch in there , before had i had split them up and i ha 3 large ones in a tank together , all the smalls and all the mediums in separate tanks , and that is when it all went down hill so i put them all back together and did a water change , this did not help and they continued shrinking and dying

and @bellabelloo i made sure there was some swimming around everyday and if not i added another 2 bags


i am hoping to do it again and hopefully get some to adulthood


P.S and just to mention , this as my first time at doing this and i am only 15 .... just to mention before some of you get snotty as i know what people on forums can be like

Was it your axolotls first batch of babies by any chance?

Mel

melfly said:

Was it your axolotls first batch of babies by any chance?

Mel

Click to expand...

yea , and it was a small batch too , with only about 80 eggs

I do believe that 1st batches are not very successful.
Only one of freds first batch survived and i didn't think he'd make it to be honest.

They all were fine til about 1 month old then their gills started disappearing and so did the end of their tails.

It could have been a mixture of this and then the dead ones fouling up the water.

Mel