Game on??

Did a major tank clean and redecorate yesterday, along with an approximate 40% water change.

Added some extra hides and plastic plants as well.

Very next morning I came out to find these spotted around the tank:







They look like spermaphores to me, but have unfortunately been laid and covered in sand.

Is that an issue?

I gave the silly bugger a nice big terra cotta plate to do it on, but he ignored it.

Before I noticed the "jellies", I did notice him nudging a females rear end and her raising her tail a bit as well.

The male is a 12 month old/20cm white leucistic (Whitey), and is beautiful.

His balls have swollen ridiculously over the last 2 weeks, and at the risk of sounding vulgar, look like they've had some relief this morning.



There are 4 females in with him, and ALL have swollen considerably over the last month.

The female I saw him interacting with was "Big Dog", who was sold to me as a male but almost certainly isn't.

She is a 4yo/31cm monster with a lovely personality.



But there are 3 other females in there, and 2 look like they're going to explode they're so big.

My questions would be:

Are all the females likely to spawn, or just the one?

Will sand over the sperm be a problem?

Obviously a bit excited at the moment.

I don't really think that the sand would be a problem, however I am unsure.

All the females could lay ( if that's what you mean by spawning ), as long as they are all gravid and pick up a spermatophore. It all depends on how many the male drops and if they females are willing to take them.

But if this is your first time breeding axies and raising eggs etc., then I would try and only let one female breed, because if they all bred that would be a LOT of eggs, especially for you first time. -Seth

sde said:

I don't really think that the sand would be a problem, however I am unsure.

All the females could lay ( if that's what you mean by spawning ), as long as they are all gravid and pick up a spermatophore. It all depends on how many the male drops and if they females are willing to take them.

But if this is your first time breeding axies and raising eggs etc., then I would try and only let one female breed, because if they all bred that would be a LOT of eggs, especially for you first time. -Seth

Click to expand...

Cheers Seth,

Yes by spawn I mean lay.

There's definitely been some different behaviour from them...I know all their personalities very well and it's all pretty weird at the moment.

For 2 of them, gravid would be an understatement. They remind me of a full term pregnant lady, just looking for relief.

I haven't raised baby axies before, but have done plenty with fish and fry feeding with BBS.

I'll see what I end up with and go from there...no point counting my chickens/axies before they're hatched!

I'm very interested in establishing nice robust bloodlines of good type and colors, and hope to use line breeding techniques I've used in poultry.

I'll try to record who laid what with who, etc, and hatch a certain number of each.

All going well, that is.

Cheers,

Well, if they are that gravid, I would say that you are probably going to get eggs from at least those two, maybe even more. I would be surprised if they didn't lay.
OK so it sounds like your experienced with raising aquatic things, so no problem there. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't end up getting more than you wanted.

I'll see what I end up with and go from there...no point counting my chickens/axies before they're hatched!

Click to expand...

Yes I agree.

Keep us updated!

Cheers Mate,

I am toying with the idea of selling them online, as there's a shortage of them in Australia at the moment, and the only person who posts them out only has one strain of olives.

I would also cull any defects fairly brutally (but humanely), as it's poor breeding practice to breed them and unethical to sell them.

To line breed with poultry, you need to keep 10-20 of each desirable strain as they don't all breed "true". Of course I realize they are not poultry, but these are the methods I am familiar with.

I work from home, and have a farm as well with ample shed space and all manner of tanks/tubs/plumbing.

All of this is irrelevant of course, until I successfully breed, hatch and raise them!!

axowattyl said:

Cheers Mate,

I am toying with the idea of selling them online, as there's a shortage of them in Australia at the moment, and the only person who posts them out only has one strain of olives.

I would also cull any defects fairly brutally (but humanely), as it's poor breeding practice to breed them and unethical to sell them.

To line breed with poultry, you need to keep 10-20 of each desirable strain as they don't all breed "true". Of course I realize they are not poultry, but these are the methods I am familiar with.

I work from home, and have a farm as well with ample shed space and all manner of tanks/tubs/plumbing.

All of this is irrelevant of course, until I successfully breed, hatch and raise them!!

Click to expand...

Good on you for trying to spread different morphs throughout Australia!

Glad to hear your going to be culling any defected ones you get ( not in a bad way of course ), as I agree, its unethical.

I have never heard how to breed strains, interesting how you do it, thanks for sharing xD

Cheers, Seth

Got eggs this morning!!

Not so many, maybe 100, but from my only leucistic female.

She still looks big and confused, so I'm hoping she's just gotten started.

She's a 4 yo haggard ugly old thing I rescued from a bad situation, but is a lovely old girl all the same.

I'm assuming that with both white leucistic parents I can expect the same offspring?

Certainly still a couple of others looking uncomfortable as well...

Yes, leucistic x leucistic will always give you leucistic babies - and possily some white albinos if they both carry the albino gene.

It can take 2 days for the female to finish laying - expect several hundred.

auntiejude said:

Yes, leucistic x leucistic will always give you leucistic babies - and possily some white albinos if they both carry the albino gene.

It can take 2 days for the female to finish laying - expect several hundred.

Click to expand...

Cheers Auntiejude,

Some albinos would be nice, as they seem to be the one's that disappeared the most in Australia when the "plague" went through. They used to be the most common.

I'll take pics and keep records, and would draw on your genetic expertise if you don't mind.

It's something I've never got a full grasp of, I'm more a plumbing and water treatment person, genetics have confused me so far.

"Big Girl" ended up doing about 300 all white eggs.

She laid them over a day and a half, and looked a little worn out in the end.

Now that she's finished she looks a lot happier and is eating well.

The eggs have all been collected and are in a breeder basket in the same water.

Got 35 hatched today!

Technically 1 day early, but they were probably laid first.

They seem to have stopped hatching, so I'm tipping tomorrow will be a bigger day for it.

Despite the parents both being plain white leucistics, there seems to be a lot of colored ones.

About 45% seem to be a greyish color, 45% white with dark speckled head and back (both of these have black eyes), and 10% seem to be fully white albinos.

They're all laying on their sides very still, and you can see they're still full of egg yolk.

They look very uniform in size, and move briskly if disturbed.

I've got the first batch of brine shrimp eggs on, and will start another lot in the morning, and I have a microworm culture as backup.

Happy so far as they look all good, but have seen a few people had them all die so I won't count my chickens yet.

You will only get leucistics and albinos from 2 leucistic parents. Sounds like you have both heavily marked and ordinary leucistics and white albinos.

I found albinos hatched from dark eggs start out grey-peach and lighten up quite quickly and wild types hatched from white eggs look leucistic to start with - watch for colour changes in the first week.

auntiejude said:

You will only get leucistics and albinos from 2 leucistic parents. Sounds like you have both heavily marked and ordinary leucistics and white albinos.

I found albinos hatched from dark eggs start out grey-peach and lighten up quite quickly and wild types hatched from white eggs look leucistic to start with - watch for colour changes in the first week.

Click to expand...

Cheers Jude,

You know what they say, "as long as it's healthy".

For my first time I'll focus and the water quality and feeding.

They all look very uniform in size, which I'm thinking is a good thing.

Out of the approximate 300 eggs, there'd only be about 20 that didn't fertilize and develop.

As I've got plenty, I'm considering not assisting any to get out of the eggs (a big no no in poultry breeding) so as to only raise the naturally vigorous that hatch over the next 48 hours.

Too harsh or a good idea?

Sounds like a good plan - and don't be shy about culling any that are a weird shape or appear to be struggling - you don't want to waste food and effort on ones that won't make it anyway. Harsh but sensible.

I'm not shy about culling, it's the right thing to do IMHO.

I only want to raise healthy and robust animals.

Mind you, I've still got to raise them successfully. Hopefully my husbandry will be satisfactory...

I see enough posts on here where the whole lot dropped dead to know I'm not home and hosed yet.