Question: About dying larvae.

I had 60 eggs that have hatched a while ago. Right now I have 56 axies left. Not much of a problem... 2 have been eaten by bigger siblings and 2 not-really-good-looking-and-pretty-small-ones died.

The rest of them are doing well.

I read a lot about larvae dying all the time and sometimes with just 3 babies remaining. I do water changes twice and sometimes 3 times a week. I feed them BBS a few times a day (just to make sure they don't starve). I have them in 3 little tanks now (the small and 'weird' ones, medium (most axies) and the biggest (they're about 2,7 cm at the moment) and I also feed them glassworms. (The smaller ones can't eat them yet I guess). I'll try frozen bloodworms soon.

So... Maybe a stupid question. This is the first batch I've ever had (and the first one of my axie) and... why aren't they dying? Not that I want them to die. But I don't think I'm doing anything better than most people with baby axies over here. I also read pretty often that they can be hard to rear... And they can get diseases and they can have cannibalistic behaviour... Okay, sometimes they nip at each other but I don't see missing limbs, gills or heads yet.

And if larvae die... at which moment in their 'life' are they pretty save? (When did they make it as a survival? I mean, what's the average time?)

With proper care, and barring any genetic abnormalities, most of them should survive.

Axolotls are some of the easiest larvae to rear.

I'm actually testing the idea that first batches of eggs are somehow weaker than others. I don't think I buy that. I have 22 larvae that have hatched about a week ago. They seem to be progressing in the same manner that my others did. I think people have problems with axolotl larvae because they tend to overcrowd them, they underfeed them, they don't attend to the water conditions (including temperature), etc. Then, when they don't have success they are looking for a reason to explain their failure and try to lay the blame anywhere but where it belongs. I guess I'll see. I have only two larvae in each container. The container holds about 250 mL of water. I top the water off as needed and do a partial water change about weekly. I feed them baby brine shrimp and daphnia.

Here's a pic of one of the latter larva prior to hatching (I'm getting multiple batches of eggs so I have several at different stages of development.)

I think age of the parents also plays a large role in it, especially if its a young female, her egg quality likely isn't as good as she is still growing . Sometimes its weakness of the offspring, but it can also be that the eggs weren't fertilized as well. I'm raising several batches as well, and the one batch that were young first-timers did not develop like the others. So sometimes they do great, but other times they won't for a variety of factors.

My first batch of eggs came from a young 10 month female. I chose to raise about 40 eggs . From the eggs I raised, I had no dud eggs. They lived in 2 shallow trays with approx 2cm water. They where fed twice daily home brewed brine shrimp, and cleaned with an approx 90% twice daily water changes . My loses came from accidentally cooking one batch .
From my experience raising axolotl, I tend to agree with Dick. When first starting out raising eggs and larvae, it is reasonable to expect some loses.

Then I guess I'm doing pretty well for the first time?
(The only thing I accidentally cooked once was a little box of worms for my axies... Awful smell!)

Morrison said:

Then I guess I'm doing pretty well for the first time?

Click to expand...

You are obviously doing something right