How to properly clean water/tank of recently hatched baby axolotls

[Vesp]

I am feeding them baby brine shrimp, and I've been having a difficult time properly cleaning their cage from dead BBS, misc. Dirt from the plants the eggs were on, and their egg gel leftovers.


What should I do to best clean out the tray, without stressing and scaring the little guys?


/// feel free to edit the title, posted this from my phone and missed the typo.

 

[ilsa]

Re: Hoe to properly clean water/tank of recently hatched baby axolotls

Do you do water changes?
I used a turkey baster and attached a straw to the end of it. I've found this great for sucking up unwanted floaties in the water

good luck

 

[Vesp]

Re: Hoe to properly clean water/tank of recently hatched baby axolotls

Yeah, my axolotl just laid eggs on the root of a plant, and by the time they hatched fluffy dirt and gunk had gotten on the eggs, etc.

I have been using a syringe without a needle. It seems to scare them an awful lot and is really time consuming.
That method works and is safe from sucking them up, but it takes a long time.

Just looking for a better option. I hate to stress them when they are so small.

The dead brine shrimp don't pose much a problem, but I just don't like the dirt so much. But I suppose it is fine.

 

[elim]

Re: Hoe to properly clean water/tank of recently hatched baby axolotls

I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago. I started off having them in a very wide bucket, but tipping so much water with the axies into a net to change the water was killing them off quite quickly.
I ended up moving the hatched ones into plastic take away containers (20 in each). I change the water every day (a few hours after adding the brine shrimp) by pouring the babies and the water into a soft net lowered into a bucket and have a new takeaway container full of water ready to place them in. I've only had a couple of deaths since changing to this method.

To get rid of the empty eggs, I bastered them out, one by one. It was a time consuming process.

 

[Alkylhalide]

I took a turkey baster and carefully removed 90% of the water andthen quickly dumped them in fresh clean water. So i was doing 2 90% water changes daily(right before each feeding) and it worked out wonderfully. No deaths from it just one injury but that was once they got bigger and couldnt fit in the turkey baster if they got sucked up by accident.

 

[auntiejude]

Re: Hoe to properly clean water/tank of recently hatched baby axolotls

I had always anticipated moving babies to a clean tub rather than cleaning the tub while they are in it. Or using a net to keep them safe and out of the way while clearing out hatched eggs or dead food.

 

[Alkylhalide]

Yes but as stated above they mention how a few have died in this method. They are very fragile and up untill they were about 3/4" they fit in the turkey baster no problem if it accidently happened. It was a fairly easy process to do and i would of rather done that then put them in a net and risk killing them. I had 0 deaths from how i did it like i said. Before i figured this idea out i wAs actually using the turkey baster to physically move them to the clean container and i had one death from that(he fell out onto the floor and was to fragile to pick up) so out of everything i tried this worked the best. Or pouringoff the water untill there was only enough to keep the babies under wTer them dumping them in fresh water, thats whT i did once they got older

 

[Eloesia]

I'm having the same issue. Would it be okay to keep them in the tank, feed them, then spot clean with a turkey baster and then change 1/4 to 1/2 of the water? I've read that this can be successful but I've also read that they need to be moved into a new container. This seems to stress them out quite a bit however and I'd rather lose as few as possible.

 

[layna]

I had two large tubs for my baby axies, i propped them on shower caddies in the parents tank and put A LOT of pin holes in the tubs so they got fresh water flow.

I just sucked as much of the gunk up as i could with a pippette (so i didnt suck the axies up) then i lifted the tubs to let some of the water drain out and gently poured the baby axies into the new clean tub

Then i could just wipe the gunk out of the old tub and pop it back on the shower caddy until the next change.