Question: Too early to help my axes out their eggs?

I have 12 axes that were supposed to hatch at 2 weeks on monday. They look fine and are moving around a lot, but are still in their eggs. I put some live daphnia in their water in the hopes of enticing them out, but no luck...they are just over 3 days past their two week due date so should I help them out, or should I give them more time to come out by themselves?

Mine took 17days to hatch.. It varies in time. Somebody can correct me if i am wrong though and i did this to the eggs that hadnt hatched and they did fine, but i remember reading that you should only force them out of their eggs around 3-4days after the start of the eggs hatching.

I had 3eggs still not hatched after 4days of the first eggs hatching so i helped them out. But other then this scenerio you shouldnt force them out of their eggs, they will hatch when they are ready. If there is still 80% of eggs still left to hatch 4days after the first one its obvious thefirst one hatched premature and you shouldnt worry.

Others will also say as long as they are moving in their eggs that they are okay and will eventually make it out on their own. But when i only had 3left i did decide to help them out.

Have any of them hatched yet? They can take upwards if 3weeks to hatch depending on their environment, like temperature

Whats the tank temp? The higher it is the quicker they hatch- as I found out to my surprise! Due to the UK heat wave the tank was much warmer then it had been, (the axies having been moved to the fridge), and my eggs hatched in under 2 weeks. The tank was about 25 degrees.

I woke up this morning and one had hatched, so I am very happy I don't have a heater but the temperature is normally at just over 16 degrees celsius, but maybe drops to 10 at night as it is winter here. But I will let them be over the weekend and see how they do. Thanks for the advice.

piaalexa said:

I woke up this morning and one had hatched, so I am very happy I don't have a heater but the temperature is normally at just over 16 degrees celsius, but maybe drops to 10 at night as it is winter here. But I will let them be over the weekend and see how they do. Thanks for the advice.

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Because it's quite cool they could take a bit longer to hatch naturally. I'd just sit back and wait

I hatched mine out at 10c and they took almost a month.

Thanks for the advice everyone - 9 out of my 12 have hatched so only 3 to go. Had a couple pretty warm winter days (25 degrees in the day) so think that did it