Changes and eggs

I have my male leucistic axolotl in a 20 gallon aquarium with many live plants and black sand and a piece of wood. There is a hang on filter and a spray bar made of cork board. The temps are from 65-71 degrees F. I have him on a diet of chopped earth worms and occasionally ghost shrimp and minnows. he is about 9 1/2 inches. I will be getting a golden albino female of the same size from buy-axolotls.com. Phillip Vena has offered to sell me one of his personal breeders for a decent price.

My questions

1) What do I need to do to get them to lay eggs? (drop temps dramatically?)

2) Is live plants OK or should i make egg laying strips and temporarily remove live plants for egg laying?

3) What colors would my leucistic male and golden albino female produce?

4) What is the largest amount of eggs one of your female axies has ever laid?

5) If they lay eggs I have several deli cups for housing two larvae at a time, each will have a small thread of java moss, is this method OK?

6) What are my odds of the two breeding?

Any responses are greatly appreciated

Your online friend

Evan

Anyone?

frogman said:

I have my male leucistic axolotl in a 20 gallon aquarium with many live plants and black sand and a piece of wood. There is a hang on filter and a spray bar made of cork board. The temps are from 65-71 degrees F. I have him on a diet of chopped earth worms and occasionally ghost shrimp and minnows. he is about 9 1/2 inches. I will be getting a golden albino female of the same size from buy-axolotls.com. Phillip Vena has offered to sell me one of his personal breeders for a decent price.

My questions

1) What do I need to do to get them to lay eggs? (drop temps dramatically?)

2) Is live plants OK or should i make egg laying strips and temporarily remove live plants for egg laying?

3) What colors would my leucistic male and golden albino female produce?

4) What is the largest amount of eggs one of your female axies has ever laid?

5) If they lay eggs I have several deli cups for housing two larvae at a time, each will have a small thread of java moss, is this method OK?

6) What are my odds of the two breeding?

Any responses are greatly appreciated

Your online friend

Evan

Click to expand...

1. You need to keep them healthy to get them to breed, healthy axolotls will usually mate when you introduce them. A drop in temperature can help, but usually they require very little encouragement.

2. They will lay eggs on anything they can wrap their legs around, plastic plants, live plants, yarn, filter hoses, rocks, and anything else they find suitable.

3. The person you are planning to buy them from should be willing to answer that question. None of us here can tell you what colors the pair will produce, because none of us know which genes they are carrying.

4. My largest female produces 800-1,000 eggs per spawning, but she is around a foot long. Larger females will lay more eggs.

5. The "2 larvae per deli cup with a thread of java moss" method will work like a dream....if you don't mind going insane. If the axolotl lays a normal sized clutch you'll have 200-400 larvae, keeping them 2 per cup will be a bit labor intensive. You can comfortably house them in large, shallow tubs with no plants or substrate while they're growing. They will require frequent water changes and later on will need to be separated by size to prevent cannibalism.

6. The odds of the two breeding are good as long as you keep them healthy. Worry about keeping them happy and healthy before you worry about them breeding and it will happen on it's own.

Thank you very much. Can't wait to breed and sell axolotls.