Friday, 28 February 2020
Eggs changed again
The eggs have changed again today. They have flattened out so they look more like sausages than beans now:
Thursday, 27 February 2020
Eggs opening up more
The eggs are beaning more again today which is a great sign:
I am happy with their progress so far but the temperature of the water keeps hovering around 18 degrees so the development may be a bit slower.
Tuesday, 25 February 2020
Preparation for hatching
Until the eggs hatch there really isn't much to do with them so I have been making sure that I have everything ready for their arrival. Although they are starting to bean nicely which is a good sign:
Today I have cleaned my hobby artemia breeders (I will call this the hobby from now on) that I bought after xmas from amazon to hatch baby brine shrimp (from now on called BBS). They haven't had any use for a couple of months as my juvenile axolotls are now eating blood worms and starting to eat chopped up worms so they are too big for baby brine shrimp.
This is what the inside of the hobby looks like:
It looks like this when it is closed:
The hobby works by filling with salt water and then sprinkling eggs in the outer ring. Once the lid is on the only source of light is in the middle of the hobby so the newly hatched BBS are attracted to the light and swim under the dividers to the center. The unhatched eggs and shells are kept in the outer ring by the dividers.
The hobby has a the following basket in it that is used to remove the BBS to feed to the axolotls:
The basket has a fine netting in the bottom so the water runs through leaving only the BBS which makes this method really easy to collect the BBS for feeding.
A downside of it is that the BBS are only collected in small amounts at one time and they take between 2 days to about a week to get to the center for collection.
This is why I have 2 of the hobby's so that I can stagger them so that when one is producing a lot of BBS the other is just being set up and will be at peak production when the other one is slowing down.
I found this method worked really well for me but I only used them for a small number of axolotls (10) so it was fine.
I found that the hobby also had virtually no smell compared to the fizzy drink method that I will explain tomorrow when I set one up.
Another advantage of the Hobby is that it does not require an artificial light source or an air pump so it is silent and uses no energy.
Today I have cleaned my hobby artemia breeders (I will call this the hobby from now on) that I bought after xmas from amazon to hatch baby brine shrimp (from now on called BBS). They haven't had any use for a couple of months as my juvenile axolotls are now eating blood worms and starting to eat chopped up worms so they are too big for baby brine shrimp.
This is what the inside of the hobby looks like:
It looks like this when it is closed:
The hobby works by filling with salt water and then sprinkling eggs in the outer ring. Once the lid is on the only source of light is in the middle of the hobby so the newly hatched BBS are attracted to the light and swim under the dividers to the center. The unhatched eggs and shells are kept in the outer ring by the dividers.
The hobby has a the following basket in it that is used to remove the BBS to feed to the axolotls:
The basket has a fine netting in the bottom so the water runs through leaving only the BBS which makes this method really easy to collect the BBS for feeding.
A downside of it is that the BBS are only collected in small amounts at one time and they take between 2 days to about a week to get to the center for collection.
This is why I have 2 of the hobby's so that I can stagger them so that when one is producing a lot of BBS the other is just being set up and will be at peak production when the other one is slowing down.
I found this method worked really well for me but I only used them for a small number of axolotls (10) so it was fine.
I found that the hobby also had virtually no smell compared to the fizzy drink method that I will explain tomorrow when I set one up.
Another advantage of the Hobby is that it does not require an artificial light source or an air pump so it is silent and uses no energy.
My new Eggs arrived today
My new eggs that I will use to create the content for this blog arrived this morning.
I bought 5 eggs for £6.99 + £2.99 postage which is more expensive than most eggs that come in batches of 15-30 eggs for the same price but I only wanted a small number of eggs as I already have a lot of axolotls so I didn't want too many more axolotls to find homes for once they are fully grown.
The seller says that the eggs were laid on 14/02. They arrived in a sealed sachet stuck down to one side of a letter sized cardboard box.
I cleaned an old 2.5 litre tub that I used for my last batch of eggs and half filled it with new decloranized water that had been sitting over night (I have 40 litres in buckets sitting every night for water changes) and poured the contents of the sachet into it.
I then put an electric thermometer into the water and put the tub in my bedroom as it is the warmest room in the house.
The water temperature is currently 18 degrees C which is a little on the low side. According to axolotl.org the water should be between 20-25 degrees C for the eggs to hatch quickly:
That means that at the current temperature my eggs should hatch around 05/03/2020 hopefully the water will get above 20 degrees soon so they should hatch before then.
I bought 5 eggs for £6.99 + £2.99 postage which is more expensive than most eggs that come in batches of 15-30 eggs for the same price but I only wanted a small number of eggs as I already have a lot of axolotls so I didn't want too many more axolotls to find homes for once they are fully grown.
The seller says that the eggs were laid on 14/02. They arrived in a sealed sachet stuck down to one side of a letter sized cardboard box.
I cleaned an old 2.5 litre tub that I used for my last batch of eggs and half filled it with new decloranized water that had been sitting over night (I have 40 litres in buckets sitting every night for water changes) and poured the contents of the sachet into it.
I then put an electric thermometer into the water and put the tub in my bedroom as it is the warmest room in the house.
The water temperature is currently 18 degrees C which is a little on the low side. According to axolotl.org the water should be between 20-25 degrees C for the eggs to hatch quickly:
"Keeping the eggs at a warm temperature (to an absolute maximum of 25 °C /77 °F) will cause the eggs to hatch sooner (generally in less than 14 days), whilst a lower temperature (such as 18 °C / 64 °F) will result in them taking perhaps more than 20 days."
That means that at the current temperature my eggs should hatch around 05/03/2020 hopefully the water will get above 20 degrees soon so they should hatch before then.
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