Question: Larvae at surface

Today my three larvae have been spending a lot of time near the surface of the water, whereas before they were content sitting on the floor. Should I be concerned? What's the most likely culprit and suitable cure? I'll be doing a full water change when the new tub has cooled a bit which I suppose might be the answer, but as a first-time mother I'm a little overprotective

I'm not sure what the answer is to this Floxie, I know I find my larvae at the surface sometimes, I don't think it's a problem, unless you have serious concerns about the water quality? I assume you're doing 100% changes each day? Therefore I wouldn't think it'd be a water quality issue. I wouldn't worry too much, they're probably doing it just to stress you out!

I suspect you're probably right! I've just done their water change and only one of them seems a little more floaty and aimless than before. The other two look fine - perhaps they just came to the surface to see what the fuss was about :happy:

On a more positive note, YEY LEGS! Can actually see their front legs from above, now

You wait til you get back legs, they are so CUTE fully formed!! Perfect mini-me's! (Not me obviously, the parents!) Tee hee!

PS. I'll be putting some photos up of my babies in a mo, so have a look, (not very good quality unfortunately)

Have you got your photos up yet? I want to see!

Sadly, Floaty didn't make it into 2009 He was the wildtype, second largest. I don't seem to very good at this keeping axolotls lark *sniff*

Hi Floxie,

Your larvae are still quite young and need to be fed several times a day - constantly, really - with live food. Your problem may be in not having food small enough for them to eat and so they may be starving to death. If larvae go too long without food, they develop air bubbles in their bellies, which are actually visible if you look closely. Remember that these young fellows cannot hunt yet, and can only catch what moves in front of their noses.

For more info, please see Rearing and Microfoods.

Good luck to your larvae, and happy new year :happy:

-Eva

Thanks Eva. I'm doing my best to ensure they're always swimming in a decent cloud of daphnia (which nearly went tragically wrong over Christmas with nobody having any in stock). It's doubly depressing that we went through so much fuss and worry during the holiday only to get home and have them eating happily again - and one pops his clogs

Thanks for the links, I'll have a read.

Well, nuts. Seems I'm not made for keeping axies. The remaining two were dead this evening - well, the golden one I'm pretty certain about. He has a long string of poop (like you sometimes see with goldfish) - I don't know if that's anything to do with it. The larger white one looked to be dead, but when he was upside-down in the teaspoon I could see his heart beating. He's in the fridge but more because I couldn't bring myself to dispose of something with life in it than because I think it'll do any good.

The guy who bred them gave them away in 4s, claiming 'they have a high mortality rate', which would have been a comfort except someone here pointed out that they don't at all. So I don't know. I followed all the advice I could find but it wasn't enough, so something's missing. Guess I best find out what before dooming any more, eh.


ARGH.

Wait a sec here - did you get the larvae as larvae? I thought you had raised them from eggs.

Floxie, you aren't unsuitable for keeping axies! You have just tried to attempt the single most difficult part of breeding there is, after a questionable (I would say reprehensible on the part of the breeder) start.

Giving someone such small larvae is the equivalent of giving an amphibian mother a nursling mammal. No wonder the "guy" said their mortality rate is high.

Your little larva needs food. That's all it needs at the start, and what it needs most. Live food, food tiny enough to fit into its little larval mouth. It is just like a newborn (because it pretty much is a newborn) in that it needs to eat every few hours. The most difficult part of raising axolotl larvae is providing adequate food when they are very small.

I actually have no idea what effect refrigerating such a small (it fits in a teaspoon!?) larva will have. The "natural" breeding season of axolotls is considered to be spring, in which case the larvae would have lots of little foods (newly hatched insect larvae, etc.) available. What the temperature in a springtime lake in Mexico City would be, I have no idea. I hope someone else with more experience in refrigerating small larvae will have something to add here?

In any case, however it works out (and I really do wish you the best - my solution, even among two-legged animals, is always to offer food ), I would beg that should you ever seek another axolotl, you would either start directly with unhatched eggs or choose an axolotl that is at least 4 inches (10 cm) long (or at the very least has all four legs).

-Eva

I am also inexperienced in raising larvae but refrigeration may work for you, it worked for me. My daphnia culture crashed within days of the batch of larvae I'm trying to rear hatched and faced with starving larvae while I sorted out brine shrimp I used the fridge.

I lost one floating with a big bubble but a second recovered over 2 days in the fridge. Water quality has a lot to do with floating as well as lack of food. I was shocked by the high ammonia levels in the small containers I used despite daily water changes.

If your larva does seem to recover in the fridge give it a water change with dechlorinated cold water from the fridge before warming it up. Ammonia is a lot less ionised and toxic at fridge temperatures so a change before warming avoids giving it a nasty blast of toxic un-ionised ammonia on warming.

Do not be too disheartened by your losses. Axolotls may be supposed to be the easiest of amphibians but they are not easy and remember in the wild only one in several thousand will make it to maturity and at the moment they seem to be doing even worse than that.

Thanks for the reassurance, all. I'm a bit surprised they got this far considering the struggle I had finding food over Christmas - but it's so frustrating. They looked perfectly healthy last night and I've just got a great supply of baby daphnia. I was really excited by their new legs

The reason I ended up with such small axies is because the animal department at the college I used to work at have two axolotls they thought were female. One of them wasn't. And then they had 200. On the one hand they shouldn't have let the situation develop, but on the other I can see they must have been stuck so close to Christmas. I don't actually know what the setup there is so I can't judge.

I've wanted axies for the longest time, but had never seen them locally - and my boyfriend doesn't trust them. He thinks anything that smiles all the time must be up to no good. He thinks they're secretly intelligent and planning to eat us in our sleep and take over the world. So when he told me my early Christmas present was baby axolotls I was as amazed as I was pleased I had no idea how small they'd be - it certainly wouldn't have been my choice, but I wasn't going to say no.

I ended up taking them over to my parents' for Christmas because feeding fish is one thing but the water changes and daphnia collecting was a bit much to expect of the inlaws! Somehow they survived three hours in a coffee jar in the car. Then running out of food on Christmas eve and not having daphnia until we found a shop on the 27th. Then back again in their coffee jar. And then just when it all seems settled and in hand...

I don't really want to give up, but I need to find out what went wrong so I don't do it again. My main suspicion is that the temperature changed too much where they were kept. Other than that I'm all out of ideas. Our water pH is way too low so I stole some filtered water from my father in law (this guy has fish tanks bigger than my bed and some serious filtration and I couldn't figure a way to get balanced pH yet). So the water was right (and tested regularly). I changed it daily, spending ages sucking up the live daphnia left over with an eyedropper into an eggcup, running it through the net and putting it in the new water (without a huge daphnia supply you do silly things not to waste 'em ), and then doing the same from the daphnia tank to collect more babies without adding gunk to the axies' tub. Hmm... what else... kept on a cool windowsil in the dark. Some of the daphnia was too big for them but I've had a lot of tiny ones recently and I've seen the axies eating (and full).

Eh. I know sometimes 'nature takes its course' but it can't have managed all four without some help from me. Just need to work out why so I don't kill anything else

Heck, sorry about the enormous post... I think I might be a bit mopey!

I'm so sorry for your loss Floxie. Perhaps the little one in the fridge will survive. I think you did all you could Floxie, don't blame yourself, at the early stages of development I found a high percentage didn't make it. I hope you get a chance to try again soon with axolotls, perhaps with larger babies next time as Blueberlin said!

Thanks Kerry I'll try not to let it put me off. Would have been incredible to see them reach adulthood from such tiny tadpoles though.

How are your babies doing, have you got photos yet?

(I just realised I have a freezer full of mice and bloodworms and a fridge full of axolotls >.<)

My babies are doing fine thank you. (read my post 'surprise discovery!') I've also put some photos up in the gallery, think I titled it 'my larvae' imaginative huh?
Take care, Kerry.

I did, and replied, I believe Awesome news. I'll have a look for your pictures.

I flushed the larvae yesterday. All the colour had gone and there was no intenal 'movement'. On the plus side there's plenty of daphnia for my fish

I think I'll just hang on and keep an eye out for older axies or local breeders, and in the meantime try to work out how to lower the pH of our own water. I will not be beaten by my own ineptitude! Heheheh...