Babies, babies,babies.

Alright, so i came home yesterday to find Zeppelin had laid tonnes of eggs. i immediately set up a 10 gallon. she has continued laying over night and there is over 300 at this point. i had a few questions, i was wondering if once the babies start growing front legs if 3 10 gallon tanks(with dividers) would be suitable for the ones that make it. (i know there tends to be alot of egg loss) i found a micro worm breeder and my local pet store sells freshly hatched bbs so i dont need to breed them. i come into a large amount of gammarus shrimp and was wondering if they would be suitable to feed them and if they would give them enough nutrition so im not buying bbs every other day. i was also wondering if anyone knows where i could buy daphnia in toronto or that would ship.

First, if you raise them right, you probably won't have a lot of losses. (Sometimes there will be a batch with genetic problems, but usually, most can survive.) So, you should figure out the most you have room to raise to, say, 3", and keep about that many viable eggs. Either that, or decide up front that you will humanely cull the excess later. As you know, you can sell the rest.

You will probably find smaller plastic containers easier to raise babies in than tanks. This requires 100% water changes, like, twice a day. The tanks are useful, though - you can treat the water there and it is easier to do a water change by scooping water out of a tank than by running to the faucet and adjusting the water temperature every time.

I don't know any reason why you couldn't use grammarus shrimp, but do you have a way to separate the littlest from the rest? And do you have enough to feed very hungry baby axies?

Your best bet for finding daphnia in your area is google. :happy:

I have access to more tanks if necessary and sponge filters which for me would be more space efficient. I plan to purchase micro worms to make sure everyone's getting enough live food. I have access to thousands of gamarus shrimp and even the largest of them are still very small. I am setting up a small tank with lots of plant matter to also try and breed them so there will be plenty. I will also purchase freshly hatched bbs a few time a week to make sure absolutely everyone is fed at all times... I don't know if I have the heart to cull any and will make due with the situation. Also will ithe fact that it's her first time laying eggs have anymore loss ?

I've read that first time mothers can have fewer fertile eggs, but my two first time mothers had mostly fertile eggs.

When I noticed my first clutch from my first time mom, I decided to try to hatch 100 eggs, because I read that there's about a 25% survival rate of first clutches. 97 survived!!!
So while a large amount dying is a possibility, don't count on it.

That's the first time I've ever read of a pet store selling hatched bbs! Jealous!

Good luck!

We're a day or 2 out from them hatching. I'm scared because the store I thought had bbs doesn't and I havnt gotten my order or eggs or daphnia and ostracods. I have gammarus shrimp but I'm hoping everything will be okay. So scared they're going to starve

Good luck! How many eggs did you keep?

If you aren't afraid of e-mailing strangers, consider contacting the local high-school biology teachers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the high school sometimes has daphnia, so they might be an emergency source of food. Of course, they will probably want some babies to observe.