My axolotl had eggs and I have no idea what I'm doing

axolover703

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So here's the situation; I've had my axolotl, Andrew, for about 2 years, and up until now, I (stupidly) thought she was a boy. But recently, a close friend of mine surrendered her male axolotl to me out of a lack of means to care for him. And seeing how different their anatomies are made me suspicious as to Andrew's true sex. But today, my suspicions were confirmed when I looked into their tank to see every plant covered with eggs. I removed the plants and put them into bowls of water without removing them from the plants, out of fear that they would clump together and be deprived of oxygen. But a couple hours later, I looked back into the tank to find even more eggs. (There's no way I just missed them, I triple checked the whole tank and there were enough to be visible at first glance.) So how will I know when she's done laying eggs? And when they hatch, how many babies would be safe to house in each tank community? Honestly any advice you can give me helps here. Although I've done my research, this is still completely new territory for me. Thank you so much.
 
Hello! First of all, I really would recommend cutting down the amount of eggs to a manageable amount. Trying to raise too many will inevitably fail. As a first time axolotl raiser, consider keeping around 25. The rest you can sell on the forum (shipping eggs is pretty easy!) or freeze them- as distasteful as that may be, it's better than watching them all die off due to stretched resources.
I don't know how much you already know, so I'll cover a few of the basics. If you don't have a brine shrimp hatchery set up, you'll need one. It's well worth the $20. The babies will hatch after 2-3 weeks depending on temp. They can be housed together in a tub until they start growing front legs.
After they grow front legs, you're going to need to split them up. Target sells 99c shoebox-size tubs which are perfect for raising axolotls, provided that you do water changes every 1-2 days. If you have the time and energy to rig up some kind of filtration system, that'll work too, but I just do daily 50% water changes.
Let me know if you want clarification or specific advice! I'd love to help out :)
 
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  • Shane douglas:
    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
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  • Thorninmyside:
    Not necessarily but if you’re wanting to continue to grow your breeding capacity then yes. Breeding axolotls isn’t a cheap hobby nor is it a get rich quick scheme. It costs a lot of money and time and deditcation
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  • stanleyc:
    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
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