Axolotls -Mating and Laying Eggs

[gordonuk]

As most of you will have seen I created a thread on rearing Axolotls from eggs ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5263 ), however the circle has turned and hopefully will stat from the beginning again.

I woke up at 5am this morning to some splashing in the tank and got up to look what it was. Two of the axolotls had extremely swollen rear ends that was red in color and swimming around like they were possessed.

The two that were swollen were sniffing each others red bits and lifting theit tails to show off the swollen area. I also notioced that the tank was full of about a dozen white half moon things in a sort of jelly and even spotted one of them being ejected from the rear of one of them.

My third axolotl does not have a swollen area, only two of them, I had always presumed the two with the bigger swollen rears were males and the other one was female but now I am not sure.

It seems that only the two with the swollen parts were interested in each other, sniffing and lifting their tails to each other, but the third one did not seem interested at all and was getting ignored by the other two.

The swollen area looked like it was turning inside out and very red, even the gills got really blood red

I am guessing that the two with swollen parts are males and that they were depositing sperm but not 100% sure.


Here is a video I took of them.

[Mick]

I feel sorry for the one thats left out

Interesting stuff and definitely swollen rear ends

[gordonuk]

This morning there was a lot of sperm again on bottom of tank but the males are pretty inactive. However the female is very restless and been swimming about a lot.
Is she frustrated or could this be a sign she is restless and may lay eggs? only time will tell......

[Mick]

Here's hoping, you will have gone full circle then

[gordonuk]

I am sooooo happy, she is laying eggs.So far there are 5 eggs been layed

edit: 2.5 hours later now 46 eggs

[gordonuk]

3 hours later

its quite emotional watching it happen. The two males are at other end of tank keeping their distance away from her.

[malakye]

Thats great news, are you going to hatch out the young?

Even though we have an axolotl we have never looked into the breeding side of them. Will the fact they are brother and sister so therefore interbreeding cause deformities?

[gordonuk]

Thats great news, are you going to hatch out the young?

Even though we have an axolotl we have never looked into the breeding side of them. Will the fact they are brother and sister so therefore interbreeding cause deformities?

dont think i am going to go through all the stress of raising them again. Done one batch but not again. It cost me nearly £250 to raise just 16 of them over 7 months.

I dont think interbreeding wll cause a problem, it happens in the wild as normal with many animals so dont think it will be an issue.

[gordonuk]

Its now 4.5 hours since she started and now about 110 eggs.

[malakye]

If it weren't you were so far away I would have taken some of the eggs from you and tried hatching them myself.
Are you just going to destroy the eggs?
Now that you know they are males and females are you seperating them?
How big are your babies now?
Loads of questions I know but I am interested as those little guys grew up on the forum lol.