Question: Are they mating? She's laying eggs

D

DingoDoo

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I woke up at 5am this morning to some splashing in the tank and got up to look what it was. Two of the axolotls had extremely swollen rear ends that was red in color and swimming around like they were possessed.

The two that were swollen were sniffing each others red bits and lifting theit tails to show off the swollen area. I also notioced that the tank was full of about a dozen white half moon things in a sort of jelly and even spotted one of them being ejected from the rear of one of them.

My third axolotl does not have a swollen area, only two of them, I had always presumed the two with the bigger swollen rears were males and the other one was female but now I am not sure.

It seems that only the two with the swollen parts were interested in each other, sniffing and lifting their tails to each other, but the third one did not seem interested at all and was getting ignored by the other two.

The swollen area looked like it was turning inside out and very red, even the gills got really blood red

I am guessing that the two with swollen parts are males and that they were depositing sperm but not 100% sure.

They are 8 months old.

Here is a video I took of them.


Axolotls Mating - YouTube
 
rutting season, definitely. Great video.

Meanwhile, the female is admiring her reflection in the glass, thinking "I wonder when those boys are done fumblin' each other if one of 'em will ask for my phone number..."

Have you seen the axolotl pages on this site? There's quite a bit more information on breeding:
Axolotls - Breeding Axolotls Successfully
 
yes this is their mating dance it might go on for some time, The male is always the first to be interested and one of them probably set of the other, but a lot of the time the female might not be in the mood If she is up for it the male will lead her around the tank to all his spermetaphores, the reason why the males are nudging each other would be due to a gender mix up lol. I had the same thing I had a male and female in a tank and introduced a new male who started the dance and my original male followed but my female was not interested and would get cranky and nip the males (feisty wild type). Eventually she found a good hiding place in the many available and the males just kept carrying on in this way.
And if it helps my axies were about that swollen.
Goodluck, you might need to separate or get a divider if you dont want any eggs if it isn't too late.
 
I am guesing the female is the one shown at 53 seconds, do you think she will be sexually mature yet? does she not get swollen too between the legs?

at 2.15 on the video you can see a small item being ejected from the rear, is that the sperm?.
 
You can see a freshly dropped spermatophore (by the male on the left) at 0:48.
 
It could be a possibility she's restless as she may want to lay, i have seen both my females do this when they have been laying. Is he clocoa open? if you look behind her legs her bum so to speak will be open and a bit red, if so expect some eggs soon :)

I'm only going by how my females have acted when they laid eggs, could be different but i hope that helps x
 
Frankie73 said:
It could be a possibility she's restless as she may want to lay, i have seen both my females do this when they have been laying. Is he clocoa open? if you look behind her legs her bum so to speak will be open and a bit red, if so expect some eggs soon :)

I'm only going by how my females have acted when they laid eggs, could be different but i hope that helps x
Click to expand...

no its not open....
she been swimming about for nearly 2.5 hours now, no sign of her resting. Its very unusual for them to swim about so much.
The males are totally motionless and not active at all, yet she is swimming about and certainly seems frustratated
 
She does look rather erm... rotund? She might benefit from having some plants (real or fake) in the tank just in case.
 
Loobylou said:
She does look rather erm... rotund? She might benefit from having some plants (real or fake) in the tank just in case.
Click to expand...

I have some fake plastic plants floating on surface

2e3cryu.jpg
 
Always wondered what their mating dance looks like, good video :) You have some gorgeous axies there!
 
the males were spreading their seed again earlier, and now camed down and resting. The female is swimming about frustrated again.

She has not laid any eggs the last time this happened, do you think she might not be sexually active yet?
do males come active first?
how does the female actually grab the sperm?
 
As in most species, males become sexually mature before the females.

Females pick up the sperm packet with their cloaca.

If you don't have appropriate places for females to lay eggs, she might not lay them. Add more plants that aren't floating at the surface.
 
She is laying eggs

I am sooooo happy, she is laying eggs.So far there are 5 eggs been layed

edit: 2 hours later now 26 eggs

flvml1.jpg
 
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3 hours later now 46 eggs

its quite emotional watching it happen. The two males are at other end of tank keeping their distance away from her.

34rxfnn.jpg
 
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Its now 4.5 hours since she started and now about 110 eggs.

nd5ro0.jpg


dhdf6f.jpg
 
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Amazing, good job.
 
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