Photo: I'm so scared for these hatchlings, any advice?

Hi everyone,

First time poster! woo!

Anyway, on Wednesday night, a friend of mine from work came in to possession of axolotl eggs that she found in her unaware aunt's tank. The eggs were about to hatch at any moment, so she decided to take on the task of caring for them. Unfortunately, despite being in the refrigerator, almost all of them hatched on Thursday so she started a batch of BBS that morning from a batch of oldish eggs that she had. She was worried about the hatch rate but didn't have another option.

The problem? She was about to go on vacation on Saturday morning and ultimately, I volunteered to babysit the newly hatched babies while she is away. So I take possession of them on Friday night and the BBS still haven't hatched. I spent all of last night trying everything I can think of to make the BBS hatch and by Saturday morning, nothing. The eggs were just not a viable option to hope for anymore so I spent the majority of today calling everywhere I can think of to find hatched BBS with no luck. I ended up driving an hour and half away to the only place I could find and bought adult BS, black worms, frozen BBS and fresh BS eggs. I got home and started the fresh batch of eggs, and attempted to feed the hatchlings with a verity of methods using the food I bought, with no success. Right now, they are in the fridge so I can at least slow down their metabolic rate.

So at this point, most of the babies are approx. 48 hours old, haven't eaten and I won't have the BBS for at least another 24 - 48 hours. I have been so stressed and worried for these little guys but I'm just at my wit's end. Any suggestions or advice in to the situation would be greatly appreciated!

I'd get a very fine net, the sort you use to rinse brine shrimp with and a jar and go to your local pond. Sweep the net in the water and hopefully you will find small daphnia. This may help.

That was a fantastic idea! Thank you so much.

I did what you said and managed to get a lot of small pond bugs. I'm not sure if they are all daphnia or not, but they are the perfect size and movement. I placed the rinsed pond bugs and axolotl hatchlings in a feeding container, but so far I haven't witnessed any hunting behavior. Hopefully they will soon!

The larvae will not eat the first days. They are still developing while they lay down on the bottom of the tank. After a few days (a days or 3) you can start trying to feed them baby brine shrimp, very small daphnia or microworms.
Good luck.

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