Preparation for breeding.

K

katy

Guest
Hey there,

I'm just about to purchase a female companion for my male leucistic. Can anyone give me some advice as to what I need to purchase in preparation? I've never seen brine shrimp or daphnia sold in Australia (can any Aussies confirm this?), what else can baby axies eat? How many tanks should I get to hold them in (for different sizes, etc) and how big should they be? Do I need a filter or aeration system in the tanks? Anything else I haven't thought of?

Thanks
happy.gif

Katy
 
hey

You can buy brine shrimp in australia.
Were abouts in australia are you? I can probarbly send you some eggs via post...and maybe some frozen foods for when the hoped-for-babies are older. (black worms, mysis shrimp ect.) Or if you didn't want to fuss of hatching brine shrimp...i could probarbly do some frozen for you.
I could even maybe send you a micro worm culture. (i use these for my babies for the first week or so)

I don't think it would cost too much for them + having them posted.

The system i'm using (for the first time) i have gathered using all the info i can.
***
When i want to breed my axies, i put the pair in a tub (or tank) with large gravle (or small river pebbles) and some real floating plants (or plastic upright plants).
Once they have spawned, i remove the eggs (i use a pair of nail scissors for thoses that are too hard), including the gravle and/or plants they are stuck to.
Put them in a smallish tank. Have it so that the eggs would loosly cover the bottom of the tank (if you can't, just guess). Make sure there is plenty of airation for the eggs (with little water flow mind)
When the young hatch i remove the old eggs and any gravle/pebbles. If any are having trouble hatching (still in the eggs a few hours after the rest have finished) i very carefuly nick the egg with nail scissors.
24 hours after the last has hatched, i put the food in (microworms or newly hatched brine shrimp). They should imediatly start eating (mine did!)
At a week old (or when the tank gets too crowded) i seperate mine into containers (small clear lunchboxes are great). I lined the containers up and ran an air line down the back of them. from that i ran an airstone for each container.
During this whole process do heaps of water changes. I also vacume and 'muck' from the bottom using a length of airline.
As the babies get bigger, so does the food. It's amazing what they can eat!
When they are looking too crowded for the containers, seperate them one again! and again when the grow more!
***
I can probarbly suply you with most things you will need if you can't find them...depending on were you are.

Hope this helps
Jessica
 
I'm in Sydney - where are you?

Ok, well I've seen brine shrimp hatching kits for sale on ebay, so can probably get some from there. I can get some airstones and a pump easy enough, I'm sure.

Any idea how many juveniles a clutch will produce? I assume not all of them will survive.
 
hey

I'm in western vic.
It is pretty easy to set up a hatching kit. I just use a large (2L) jar. I put an air stone in and about 1/4 tsp of eggs.
Within about 24-48 hours i have baby brine shrimp!

In my clutch i got about 150 eggs. I ended up with 115 babies, and still have 106 of them (some were deformed and i had to cull them)

I have heard that you can have 100-200 on average with a max of about 1000

Jessica
 
Cool, thanks for your help
happy.gif


What are you going to do with your babies once they're grown?
 
katz
was wondering if u could me the address to the ebay brine shrimp hatching kits i need to get one
do brine shrimp breed or do i have to keep getting the kits thanks
 
quote from jessica
eggs via post...and maybe some frozen foods for when the hoped-for-babies are older. (black worms, mysis shrimp ect.) Or if you didn't want to fuss of hatching brine shrimp...i could probarbly do some frozen for you.
I could even maybe send you a micro worm culture. (i use these for my babies for the first week or so)

i live in melbourne was wondering if u could send me some of thoses things too and help me out
happy.gif
 
hey

Katy - I'm selective breeding mine...Alot of the ones you see for sale in pet shops ect has malformed gills, toes and tails. I'm going to cull fairly heavily for ones that are malformed.
Then i am going to select the 5-10 best to breed from...the rest i will sell.

Tori - I find that if you put my brine shrimp in a large tank (say 1-2 foot) they will easily breed.
You can accatualy sex them when they get older! The males have 2 white dots just before the tail, and females 1! They breed really easily.
You also don't need to buy kits...you only need the eggs (if you already have a set up/kit) and they are fairly cheap.
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What sort of thing would you be after? Melbourne's easy peasy to send to! I can even send them via normal post.
At the moment i can only send brine shrimp eggs...I don't have any propper packing for frozen foods on hand.
I can do either just brine shrimp eggs, or eggs with salt (ready to throw in water!)

Jessica
 
eggs and salt please leave ya email address i email u
thanks alot
can u just used a 2litre bottle?
 
hey

I havn't had to put any down yet...any ideas on that?
Oh...exept for a couple that were malformed when they hatched...I just put them down the drain with the old eggs (I know...sound awful, but they were nearly dead anyway, and would never have lived!.)

my e-mail is bird_keeper@hotmail.com (put subject appropriate)

Jessica
 
I'm not sure what the best way to do it would be. It'd be difficult and costly to get them an injection. If they were still really small you could either 'flush them' like you have, though I don't know if that'd be the 'humane' thing to do... or maybe cut off their heads with a scalpel? That'd be instant. Only if they were really small, though. I really don't know - I feel kinda mean saying it :/
 
hey

Still waiting on an e-mail...if your having trouble please say so!

How about feeding them to fish? That would be instant and a good cause...?

Jessica
 
That would work. Chopping of the head should work...but I'm not sure how large they are. It would be quite painful for the axxie if you didn't kill it on the first try.

Mind telling me how you get brine shrimp to breed? Sounds interesting. Tank setup, salinity etc. etc.
 
on the subject of euthanasia, I put the in the fridge, then in the deepfreeze. I've never had one 'resusitate' from this.
 
Could you breed seamonkeys? They're just brine shrimp right? Are they O.K. to feed to adult axolotls? Is there a webpage with more information on breeding and keeping brine shrimp?
 
well, apart the fact that those I put down were malformed larva, don't I now feel like a monster...

Better learned now than later, however.
 
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