Phoenix Rising
New member
Hi
This is my experience in the large scale rearing of axolotl for supply to the pet trade.
All adults are kept in 4m diameter ponds that are 750mm deep.
They are fed commercial salmon or goldfish pellet with a constant eye on water condition in regards to any algal bloom
Too great an algae bloom created gas bubble problems in the stock and fish loss
Do avoid this situation by water changes with water that has Daphnia concentrations in it.
Each pond only had one color kept in it and adults were conditioned with good food after a season of spawning. All breeding stock was checked well before spawning commensed to check for brood quality and or sickness. Good quarantining of any stock entering the farm was mandatory practice for a minimum of one year.
Spawning mops were placed in each brood stock tank and checked each morning until sufficient eggs were loaded onto each mop.
Mops were gathered per variety and placed in a corresponding pond that was to house that color morph. Grow out ponds were labelled to avoid mixing as some colors suffered more than others in mixed rearing pond situations
New mops were only placed in grow out ponds until young were observed at upto 20mm or a stocking density was deemed at being reached by the number of eggs placed in the pond. In this case around 600.
Most grow out ponds used were already matured with an algae daphnia cycle and old enough to contain worms. Attention was paid to black swimming beetles and dragonfly larvae as these would feast otherwise.
To avoid this we used a well a established algal pond with correct algae density and pump green water into a cleaned out pond that will be used for the intended young. Now add sufficient daphnia to hopefully coincide with the young axolotls eating from a peaking daphnia population in your pond. When you get it right you won't believe how many you'll harvest out of a pond this size.
Only use this method if you have sufficient market in which to handle large volumes of young and don't use if your only thought is what you might make out of growing hundreds of young.
The reason I say this is I shared this information with a young grower who had no end of problems with both holding feeding and selling all his stock. When he finally rang asking for help I witnessed many sick dieing and generally poor conditioned fish that no one wanted.
It broke me seeing such a thing so please have the interest of your stock in mind, not your wallet.
All the best ?
This is my experience in the large scale rearing of axolotl for supply to the pet trade.
All adults are kept in 4m diameter ponds that are 750mm deep.
They are fed commercial salmon or goldfish pellet with a constant eye on water condition in regards to any algal bloom
Too great an algae bloom created gas bubble problems in the stock and fish loss
Do avoid this situation by water changes with water that has Daphnia concentrations in it.
Each pond only had one color kept in it and adults were conditioned with good food after a season of spawning. All breeding stock was checked well before spawning commensed to check for brood quality and or sickness. Good quarantining of any stock entering the farm was mandatory practice for a minimum of one year.
Spawning mops were placed in each brood stock tank and checked each morning until sufficient eggs were loaded onto each mop.
Mops were gathered per variety and placed in a corresponding pond that was to house that color morph. Grow out ponds were labelled to avoid mixing as some colors suffered more than others in mixed rearing pond situations
New mops were only placed in grow out ponds until young were observed at upto 20mm or a stocking density was deemed at being reached by the number of eggs placed in the pond. In this case around 600.
Most grow out ponds used were already matured with an algae daphnia cycle and old enough to contain worms. Attention was paid to black swimming beetles and dragonfly larvae as these would feast otherwise.
To avoid this we used a well a established algal pond with correct algae density and pump green water into a cleaned out pond that will be used for the intended young. Now add sufficient daphnia to hopefully coincide with the young axolotls eating from a peaking daphnia population in your pond. When you get it right you won't believe how many you'll harvest out of a pond this size.
Only use this method if you have sufficient market in which to handle large volumes of young and don't use if your only thought is what you might make out of growing hundreds of young.
The reason I say this is I shared this information with a young grower who had no end of problems with both holding feeding and selling all his stock. When he finally rang asking for help I witnessed many sick dieing and generally poor conditioned fish that no one wanted.
It broke me seeing such a thing so please have the interest of your stock in mind, not your wallet.
All the best ?
