What should i do?

I Have had two axolotls for over six months now and they just recently laid some eggs. I'm wanting to do the best that i can for these little guys once they hatch but my problem is finding the live food for them. I live in a small town that doesn't have much so i was wondering if anyone knew of any reliable sites that i could buy live daphnia from that i would have within a short amount of time.

first i think its important that you know that the first batch of eggs laid are full of duds. so i wouldn't count all your eggs before they hatch.

i recently started rearing some axie larva myself and decided to go the daphnia route and start my own culture. it turned out to be a disaster and my daphnia culture has basically crashed. My only saving grace was that i had a microworm culture which i have been using to feed to my newly hatched axies.

though it seems like a lot of people don't use microworm's to feed larva here. i think for a beginner its a great thing to have on hand as they are pretty much foolproof.

another great option is hatching your own baby brine shrimp. though it takes a little more cleaning up, this is a great way to feed your axies, because for one you don't need to tend to a culture you simply hatch them on demand.

i'm not trying to discourage you from trying out daphnia. i just want you to know it gave me a lot of problems.


if you are set in your ways of using daphnia a good place to get it is ebay. thats where i bought mine from and they sell some really cool kits to start your own culture.

best of luck on your axie egg adventure!!

Thank you for the information. I'm open to try sort of food that will work the best. I've seen daphnia on a few web site but if brine shrimp are easier maybe i'll try those.

I'm watching the eggs daily and i see what you mean by a lot of them are duds. It's ok if the majority of them don't hatch. Maybe next time there will be more. I think i see a few of them developing, Hopefully anyways.

Thank you once again.

I disagree. SOMETIMES the first batch is less fertile than the subsequent batches, but sometimes you'll have 1000 fertile eggs. It depends on your animals.

You can also use chopped blackworms to feed larvae. Unfortunately, they have to be chopped really fine for newly hatched ones, but once they get a little bigger, they can easily tackle larger worms.

Unless you plan on raising all of them (which I cannot more strongly discourage!), you should sell the eggs quickly, keeping just a few for yourself, before they get too far developed. Otherwise you're going to be stuck feeding dozens and dozens of hungry little mouths.

I was going raise them until the are kind of grown into axolotls and then i was going to sell them. I work at a pet store so i'm not too concerned about the feeding all of them depending on how many are fertile and make it.

What about finely chopped red wigglers? I can get those live at where i work.

Larvae are 1cm long when they hatch. They'll be too small for red wigglers. They need tiny, moving food.

Ok. Thank you very much. I will see if i can maybe find some brine srimp that are alive.