Andersoni 160 in 120

One meter sixty salamander in a one meter twenty aquarium.
1200x40x50 net water content approximately 170 Liter.
Standing on top of a black self-built base cabinet.
The lighting consists of three meters 24v LED strip 6000 K daylight 3300 lumen.
One meter 24v rgb LED strip with warm white LEDs lumen unknown.
Lighting is controlled by a variable timer with sun rise and fall.
In the winter 6 hours maximum lighting of daylight LEDs and warm white LEDs Red LEDs 15% and Blue LEDs 6%.
In summer, the maximum water temperature of 22 degrees Celsius is regulated by a cooler Blue Marine Chiller 400. The current winter temperature is 16.5 degrees Celsius.
Filtration from right to left horizontal flow no turbulence.
Aquarium Pump Tetratec EX800 Plus, External filter. Filter mass consists for a large part of baked clay balls.
Soil 3mm black gravel (Non-toxic Quarts fisch Frendly) and 30-60 mm black beach pebbles.
A large piece of aquarium wood
No houses or tubes as a shelter for salamanders.
About seven different water plants and algae.
Thousands of small aquatic animals presumably Peracantha truncata , Cyclops and such. Slags most of which are consumed so that not many snails can be seen.
Seven two year old adult Andersoni's 2.5.0. with a total length of 160 centimeters.
The filter is cleaned once a year during commissioning of the cooler.
I clean the hoses and pipes of the filtration system twice a year for a better flow rate.
Every week the gravel is cleaned as much as possible with a suction pipe.
Every week a water change of about 40 - 50 liters with water from the tap Ph 7, Gh 7.
Water values are not measured, completely unnecessarily if everything goes well.
Every week, the plants are fertilized with 10 ml aquarium plant fertilizer.
A few rusting nails for the necessary iron.
The animals receive only living food or fresh frozen food. Pallets and blood worms (red mosquito larvae) are not fed to them.
All food with an exception for small fish is offered with a food stick to prevent unnecessary gravel eating.
The Andersoni have never been ill. Sometimes they refuse to eat especially the males. They can also spit out the foot. This happens sometimes when they have swallowed a piece of moss with the food or for another unclear cause. These remains can often be found in the tank within 12 to 24 hours. At the next feeding they just eat again and everything is fine again. Sometimes on rare occasions they rinse their stomach, this causes a large white cloud in the water.
This setup has been going on for more than two years now without any disappointments except that they have not yet begun to breed.

Photo of the aquarium

BEAUTIFUL set up!!! Your Andersonis are gorgeous too.

I have some pictures here for clarification regarding the materials I use.







[

LED light exposure times


Here is a schematic of the LED light exposure times. I think about it to turn off the blue LED. The green algae on the wood have been growing very enthusiastic lately, now also at other places in the aquarium. I suspect that the blue light is the cause of this. The algae have mainly been shown on the top piece of wood for that time.



02-04-2016 when they were small

Aquarium maintenance


Suction tube with hose for gravel cleaning


Before cleaning,

Changing the water,

After cleaning


Ready for the next week.

Re: Aquarium maintenance

Wow, amazing set up and even more amazing salamanders!

Fingers crossed

Fingers crossed
Two weeks ago I found a few sperm packages in the tank, watched for a few days for eggs, but everything stayed calm. With axolotls I have the experience that after the mating the next days eggs are laid. Is this different with the andersoni? Two days ago about five hundred eggs were laid. Now I have not seen anything of sperm in recent weeks, from there comes my doubt if it is okay with these eggs. It looked like they were not fertilized. Brown on top of the egg and white on the bottom.
If these eggs are not fertilized, I have a problem.
They are stuck everywhere on the plants. In the case of unfertilized eggs, water quality will deteriorate very quickly. A cleaning of the tank will damage all plants and possibly half of them must be thrown away.
Oxygen will become a problem at a halved plant mass and an air stone must be used and I am not in favor of this.
But this afternoon I discovered that the eggs have turned brown, is this normal? This gives some hope for a good result. There are four more ladies who are also fat from eggs.
I'll keep you informed.

What I like about beach pebbles.

What I like about beach pebbles.
Different algae grow easily on these stones which give them different colors. As an example, dark green in winter and light green in spring. brown algae also give a nice color shade. The aquarium floor gets a natural look. A beautiful contrast is obtained by a combination with coated black gravel. This will not get dirty and will remain beautifully shiny black.

It's a little early to tell, but from what I am seeing and from what you are describing they are fertile. If so congratulations! :happy:

Eggs develop rapidly

Eggs develop rapidly
I am very happy that the eggs are developing. This morning about two hundred eggs removed from the aquarium. Eggs are accommodated in a breeding tank. This day also checked with a scoop net if there is enough food in the ditch near my house for the growing up of salamander larvae.
It looks like the first beginning is without problems.

Beautiful set up. A Zacapu lake biotope

On the edge.

On the edge.
I started this story because I know that the ratio of animals to water is on the risky side. This has proven itself in recent weeks. After the beautiful event of eggs, a lot of things happen with the water quality. The eggs that were left behind in the aquarium had a great influence on the quality. After a few days I noticed that the Andersoni's take more air at the water surface than normal. I then decided to remove as many visible (50) eggs as possible. After a day, everything seemed to be normal. Due to weather conditions, the temperature outside in a few days increased from 8 degrees to 18 degrees Celsius. The aquarium water temperature rose in 2 days from 18 to 21.5 degrees. This caused massive hatching of the remaining eggs. The water turned slightly milky. As far as possible, all empty eggs removed. These could almost only be found by using a strong flashlight. I changed 50% water that evening. The water smelled sour. The next morning it was wrong again. A quick change of 30 liters of water. At the end of the day looking for more hidden empty eggs. It is an almost impossible task to find everything.
I think there were more eggs in the aquarium than in the nursery box.
Have thought for a moment to clean the filter. But this was not necessary after the most was removed the water became clear again. Now until today, empty eggs still appear, rolling over the bottom.
It may be time to take one out. At the last measurement, the largest animal had grown 1 cm to 25 cm. When all the animals have grown 1 cm, another 7 cm of salamander is added.
It seems wise to immediately remove (large numbers of) eggs from the aquarium.
I have made a tool that I can use to suck eggs from the aquarium without damaging the plants. The eggs will go broke, of course.

Too bad the water quality is decreasing so much because of the unfertilized eggs. Do you have snails in your aquarium? Snails can distinquish living and dead eggs and only eat the dead ones, same goes for plants (and even animals!).

As always, lovely pics!

Update andersoni larvae.

Update andersoni larvae.
It goes well with most of the andersoni little ones. In week 15 they came out of the egg the length today varied between 25 mm and 40 mm.
It is estimated that about 200-230 animals remained until now.
Approximately 5 animals die every day (+/- 50 to date). The cause of this is a metabolic problem. This seems to occur with axos and andersoni that lay eggs for the first time. (source German axolotol forum). It concerns as far as I can judge animals with insufficiently developed forelegs. The membrane does not function properly because of this they swell up. This deviation becomes visible after approximately 2 weeks. If you think that there are no more new ones, you will see new victims the next day. It seems that things are starting to get better now. Most of them look sturdy with good legs. I made a photo of two animals to show the difference. Number 001 is the healthy animal

Daphnia in abundance.

At the moment it is no problem to get food for the young andersoni. Twice a day I feed them a fair amount of Daphnia early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The filter is also cleaned twice a day because a considerable amount of the daphina is sucked into the filter. I use a 320 l / h pump for about 45 liters of water to keep it clean.
Like every year the Daphnia disappear in a few days’ time. This usually happens in late May when the temperature rises. Then there is nothing to catch close to home until winter / early spring. If this happens, they will hopefully be big enough to switch to a different food source.

Counting seems difficult

This week I started a new plastic container to distribute the animals.
It was necessary because the amount of poop heavily loaded the water and filter.
I wanted to divide them into two groups of about 100 animals. I caught 100 of them, but this did not look like half of the total, and I added 20 more. This is also the absolute number that I find acceptable with their current size. Photos taken animals transferred. If I compare the two plastic containers with each other, the largest number of animals is still in the oldest plastic bin. Possibly 200 pieces or more. There are many more than I thought (250 eggs). 120 + 80 died +200 makes 400. Do I need a new reading glasses ?. I must now solve the problem of too many animals.

They grow well

They are between 50mm and 70mm in size. Animal on photo is 60mm

Beautiful babies! They are stunning. I am sure you will have no problem finding homes for them.

supergrappler said:

Beautiful babies! They are stunning. I am sure you will have no problem finding homes for them.

Click to expand...

I do not know if there is much interest in this type of salamander today. I know that sometimes a considerable amount of money is asked. Whether some of these animals go to a new owner remains to be seen. The expected and unforeseen problems with a large density of animals have not been missed, I will come back to this later. At this moment 28-05-2018 the andersoni are between 70mm and 100mm..