Update: photos are coming, I do promise that! I talked with the lab tech yesterday and we formed a game plan with how we will be going about this project. She cleaned the tanks earlier in the day to scrape the algae off of the sides and went to an axolotl specialist and a few different axolotl breeders who are friends of hers that live in the area for additional advice. We all agree that we are going to buy one large tank for the axolotls, a 50 gallon (long) minimum tank which will be up and cycled before we breed the axolotls. The tank that the female is in is a good size but it's hard to clean (it is 20 gallons but it's a cube type tank with a super dense lid and you can no longer buy parts to fix it so its gone if something breaks in the filter) and the male's tank is a 20 gallon long but we want to put the axolotls together and it's just not enough space for them both. So we are purchasing a giant tank which we will hopefully have by the end of this weekend and then we will go from there! The algae was unfortunately still so stuck to the tank and the water was so cloudy after that 75% water change that you couldn't see either of the axolotls in their tanks. So I didn't get photos, the male was pretty stressed as well.

Our female, Goldy, Laid her eggs today! About 300 or so appear to be fertilized and laid. We will unfortunately cull some of them since we can not possibly care for all 300 baby axolotls. We will do this once we see which one carry which genes (about 4 days into their development in the egg we will be able to see this) and will be keeping about 20 of them. Here is a close up of some of the eggs.

Image (c) 298157

oh also, the eggs have been moved to a different tank from Goldy and Edwin (the male). The larger tank is still on its way here but was supposed to be here days ago. Since the filter in Goldy's bio cube tank (a large, cube with tons of ground space) is not easy to clean, we had to move her over to the (either) 50 or 65 gallon with the male temporarily until we got the other bio cubes from our other lab so now she has a new tank until we can get the larger one in. We have snail mail here so fingers crossed it gets here next week. If not, we may just buy one from the pet store. I will keep posting once we can start seeing the offspring's limbs develop in the eggs. I will also be posting some microscope camera development photos since the lab has some of those lenses. I am not sure their technical term but the offspring will be alive when we take these photos/videos of them under this microscope.

~3 days old now. Going to start seeing limbs grow in the embryos. I'm bringing about 50+ eggs home to hatch and raise tomorrow. This way I can document the process and see it for myself since I can't be in the lab every day all day. I'll be able to see them under a microscope that they are giving me specifically for analyzing live specimens and will post any photos I get from that on here. The lab is being super awesome and I am loving this project. From what we can tell, the ones in the photo below will have the GFP gene. We are hoping for some chimeras as well but will be prioritizing GFP and transgenic axolotls since the (primarily) male axi we have is transgenic and they are apparently pretty valuable.

Photo (c) 298157 taken today

Day 4

Axolotls have developed buds. We can now really tell which ones are the strongest and which eggs are showing GFP genes and such. This photo was taken at 12:30pm today. Looking at the ones I brought home today (about 20 eggs) are beginning to get that croissont shape which is such a good sign! I appear to have 6 GFP eggs in my possession and will be able to document everything from home. Sorry for the blurry quality, this is a cropped photo so ou can see it better without having to zoom in. this egg appears to be a non-GFP carrier.

edit: image (c) me

This is dope. Well done science experiments excite me 🤩

Nyx please work on getting HEE a GFP Gold Chimera axolotl lol

This is awesome, thank you so much for sharing it! As a hopefully future bio major, this is offering a really cool glimpse at what I might get to do someday.

Thank you <3 Honestly same here!

I have seen Glo Fish before and knew they were engineered to be that way but literally never thought about it being GFP. Interesting thing about axolotl GFP genes is that apparently, a first generation GFP axolotl can not produce GFP offspring unless it is bred to another GFP. They must be at least 3rd generation to produce offspring carrying the gene. Which is really interesting to me. And your virus work is so cool sounding! I need to know more :D

Well the female is golden albino, the male is a wild type (mottled) carrying GFP. The whole axolotl itself would be gold albino with the wild type patterns showing through. If it were GFP, that would be really cool but chimera's are rare. We could easily have a golden albino female with the speckles (mottling) of the male but it wouldn't be chimera. Fingers crossed we get some really cool offspring. This is our breeding pair's last breeding because they are a ton of work to breed and care for. Baby axolotls will only eat live food, they are very big mess makers and require 50% to 100% water changes daily for the first 2 months. And because sourcing live food small enough for them is so difficult (they are super small), and breeding the food is very time consuming, we source ours frozen and mimick what live food would move like using a turkey baster XD but that takes 30 minutes. Then we have to clean the whole tank or move them to a different tank for feedings (this happens twice a day for about 6 months). So long story short, I don't know if we will get a GFP chimera axolotl but we will see!

Its so so much fun, a lot of hard work, but it really is worth it! One of the biggest things I recommend to anyone going into bio, wanting to go into bio, or honestly going to college in general is to go to a community college first if you have the option! Even if it is just for a year. Universities are super cool but community colleges have more time to work one on one with you, you have more opprotunities as an individual, and you are getting the same degree (if you finish your 2 years at one) for cheaper. Another option is to knock out your pre requisites at a community college and then transfer to an instate university that way credits transfer with no issue. Anyways, I really wish you tons of luck! And if you ever have any questions, feel free to post them here or PM me.

OH and that extends to everyone :) if you have any questions, feel free to post them or PM me! I will answer them to the best of my ability!

Good morning (evening or night) to everyone! This is now day 5 for these axolotls and these eggs are both exciting and encouraging. It appears that out of the eggs I have, only 2 of them are not fertilized which is excellent. The rest are progressing normally. There is one egg that is partially out of the water because the main leaf (I have a couple of leaves that these eggs are on) keeps floating to the top. This egg has situated itself on the stem of this leaf on the very very end and that end keeps floating upwards. I added more water to the tank and gently pressed the leaf back down. The egg is fertilized and seems to still be doing well even when just slightly out of water so fingers crossed it makes it. I am trying not to mess with them too much since the more you mess with them, the more likely they will die and we really dont want that. Over the course of last night, they really began taking that croissont or C shape. I suspect that by tomorrow I will be able to see little organ buds form including the head/brain, stomach and intestines, and the tail. Limbs are not forming just yet but gills will become visible. Similarly, under a microscope or magnifying glass even, we will begin to see colors. While we can see which ones will be GFP at this point (some may be carrying it and not really showing it but we know that 6 are GFP), we will begin seeing the pigmentation appear on the skin very very lightly. That will begin tomorrow (day 6) probably later in the day. For now, here is a photo taken this morning at about 7:30am. You can see all except for 1 appears to be that C shape. The 1 oddball is the egg that was not fertilized. The other one is on another leaf and I just can not get a good photo of those.

Edit: image (c) me