Blackworms for babies?

[Koryos]

Hi all, it's me again. I've got 15 baby axolotls that are all around a week-two weeks old (they all decided to hatch on different days), ranging from ~.5-.75 inches. I had been rearing them pretty successfully on brine shrimp, and I'm starting to see a lot of arm buds, however my brine shrimp culture failed this time around and I scrambled and bought some blackworms.

So, my question is: how fine do I need to chop them? (For instance, how big should they be compared to the baby's head?) Or do I need to chop them at all? I read somewhere on this site that the babies will just nip off the ends of full-sized ones- is this viable? Also, I changed the water about half an hour after each brine shrimp feeding. How often do I need to do this with blackworms?

Since I'm already posting, can you tell me if there is anything I should do to improve my current setup? I've got all the babies in separate tiny tupperware containers, each with about 3-4 cm water in it, and a leaf off an aquatic plant floating in each. (I replace the leaves if they look rotten, and I rub them off every day to remove bacteria.) I changed the water after each feeding and also wiped the containers out to remove any bacteria that might be growing. (Transferred the larvae to a holding container via a large-bore pipette.) The babies all seem to be doing fine, except for one, who was born with a big swollen tummy. I know this is often a death sentence for them, but he's lived for over a week and has been eating and growing, less than the others, but still some, so I don't want to give up on him just yet.

Sorry for the text dump, I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right! I appreciate any and all advice you guys can give me. I haven't lost one yet and I intend to keep it that way.

 

[920fish]

If you can find any very small black worms in that they will be able to eat that. The bigger blackworms tends to be too strong for them to tackle because bigger ones will wriggle alot harder when attack. Try chopping the blackworms about the same size as long as their head is fine or even smaller if you could do that. I use a turkey baster and suck one or two blackworms and try to get it as near as possible to the axolotl baby mouth so they would know blackworms is food too. Also just put your black worms in a container with some age water and suck out all the dead worms and keep changing the water until the water is clear. Also you should check out my setup for the black worms tutorial on the food forum in here if you want to breed black worms. Good luck.

 

[Koryos]

Thanks! Is it ok to just leave the blackworms in there with them indefinitely if they don't eat them?

 

[JessKB]

blackworms will live a long time with the axolotls before they die. The trick to get them to the right size is to put a bunch in a cup with some tank water. tilt the cup a little, and go crazy with some scissors. That's how I did it for larvae that were to small to tackle a full worm. Blackworms are a great food source, once you switch to them your larvae grow like crazy.

 

[Koryos]

Awesome I finally got my brine shrimp to hatch, so I think I'm going to give them both for now as brine shrimp are what they're used to (they didn't seem too interested in the worms last night).

 

[JLowe92]

Do cut blackworms survive? Like an earthworm? Will it create two? When will baby axolotl start eating dead food?

 

[Nina Willis]

I chop mine really fine for babies this size. They can live after being chopped, though better if it is just a fough chop and not tiny pieces.