Latest Videos

25th March

 

29th March - The biggest one walking around

Day 43 (26)

My largest one has grown overnight, its nearly 4cm in size now, and you can see its tiny rear legs now. Its using its front legs to navigate much more now.

Day 42 (25)

I am able to feed most of them frozen bloodworms now, am cutting them into 3mm sizes then with plastic tongs put it towards their mouth, it looks like they can smell it as you can see the movement (interested movement) as soon as its near them, but not sure if they have noses so it could just be good eyesight.
I even left two small worms in tub overnight and they were gone in morning so they seem to be able to find dead non moving food, so again is it smell or sight?
They eat them in the same way my little frogs do too, they seem to do do everything the frogs do, eat food same way (just without using their feet), go to surface for air, do zen positions.
My biggest one is growing quick now, its getting real big, hard to believe only 3 weeks ago it was born. Its nearly 3.5 cm in size now.

The smaller ones still not intterested in the frozen stuff yet, they can only eat the BBS.

Day 31 (14)

Day 31 (14)

 

I have even more tubs on my desk now, have split them again. 1/5/3/3/6/3/4

they growing reall quick, some are 4 times the size when they were born.

 

Three deaths

Day 31 (14)

Three more have died today, now down to 25. Two of them were the largest ones I had and one is the smallest.

Day 29 (12)

Day 29 (12)

I have split the hatchlings into 5 tubs now as they were getting a bit bigger. They are now in 1 / 5 / 6 / 8 / 8

The tubs are a bit clearer so makes it easier for me to see the BBS moving about.

I had planned on putting them in the tubs relative to the size of the hatchlings but the things too damn quick to catch. Never seen something move so quick in my life, at least double the speed a platy fry is when born.

Some of the hatchlings are much bigger than the others, like my frogs these are facinating to watch them move about and try and eat some food.

Several of the bigger ones you can clearly see the blood vessels in the gills but its really hard to take pics of that. After watching them it seems they also use their gills to detect movement of live food.

Now they are bigger you can see inside their bodies, you can see its stomach and its poo tract. You can see the poo clearly in its tail and its anal cavity is near the end of its tail rather than near the body. On average the poo travels 4mm along the tail and then exits.

Four of them you can see the front legs forming, they are just below the gills and look like white and flop about so not rigidtity to them yet, and unless you knew what to look for you would just think it was part of the gill. Again impossible to photograph. (the front legs come first not the rear ones)

Here is pics of all 28 hatchlings

Day 27 (10)

Day 27 since Eggs were laid and 10 days since first ones hatched.

Day 27 (10)

Here are the latest pics, just done a water change.

 

 

Day 25

The hatchlings are roughly 5 days old now and getting fed twice daily and water change daily too. Its really hard using a syringe to do the water change as so time consuming, and its also time consuming making the BBS, it goes off so quick, my flat is stinking of rotten BBS, it really is a vile smell. Mine seems to go off and die within 24 hours, dont know how people can say it survives for 3 days as that certainly not true in my case.

I had a 29 that hatched but one died overnight so down to 28 now. I have also noticed one has a broken tail, it is clearly visible the last few mm of its tail having clean off within the skin and hanging loose. Not sure how that happened or if it will survive. Its still alive for now.

Here is the latest pics taken today.

The Dead One

The Broken Tail

The General Population

Day 22

Its amazing watching the differences between the Axelotls and normal fish fry. Fry swim about all the time yes these hatchlings lay at the bottom of the tub and dont move. They either lay on the bottom and dont move, point head up to the surface, or point tail up, all in a faship you would expect fish to be in if they were dead.

It seems they play dead and only move if some food goes swimming past and they snap at it. If you genttly move the water or tap its tail it goes psyco and swims like mad around the tub then plays dead again.

I have managed to get some BBS on the go and just put some in and you can see by the video. This was their first meal, after a few minutes they played dead again.

I suppose they dont and cant move much as they dont have the fins like fish do and they dont have legs yet. They jerk about when snap food quite clumsely, but its only really got its tail to move with, nothing to regulate direction. I still forget that the gills are not fins and what should be inside is outside, just like the Pompidou building in Paris.

They also seem to act the same as my little dwarf frogs, they come upto the surface to get air, not sure if its normal for the to do that as no circulating water or anything in the tub so maybe they just desperate for air, still the jury is out on that question. There is loads of bubbles on the surface very similar to my frogs. As Axelotls are not a fish and not a reptile but someting inbetween would not surprise me if similar to the frogs but still good to observe them.

Currently my hatchlings are at stage 3 of 5

Day 20

Day 20


As of 5pm today there are 29 that have hatched. Two eggs failed to develop and were still at the day 1 stage and 3 larve went mouldy on Day 17 and never hatched. All the hatchlings are in one tub now and in the small tub remains 3 larve in their eggs, one is going mouldy and think is dead, one does not move at all when you touch the egg sack and one is moving so looks like those two are dead and only one more to hatch.


It looks like I have had Two egg failures, and 4 deaths prior to hatching, so not a bad result, but now is the hard part to see how many survive from now on.


The 29 hatchlings are totally motionless on the bottom of the trub, not making any movement at all unless i tap the side of the tub and they go pycho and swim all over the place.

Best Image Ever!!

Day 17/18 - The Videos

The Videos

Day 17 - Three are hatched




Day 18 - Ten are hatched

Now there are 20

Now there are 20

Day 18

Day 18- Two become Nine

The one middle right in the jelly egg is dead, its all mouldy

As of 5pm on Day 18, there are now 10 Hatched.

Day 17 - They hatch!

Two have hatched overnight

 

The others are still in their egg sacks

Day 15

The Twins - two larve in one egg