Gravel and Tankmates?

Hi all, I have 3 axies, in a bare glass tank, just some plastic plants and big chunk of driftwood on the bottom.

I'd like to get some sort of substrate to dress the bottom of the tank up, I'm looking towards getting large pebble/grabel. My axies tend to look upwards for their food as I hand feed them. But one axie likes looking at downwards (he's slowly starting to realise that "looking up = food"). My question is: What's the best sized gravel for adult axies. Pea-sized? 2cm? What about if I got a big bag of "bonsai tree" dressing stones? Those are pretty big, but still small enough for a gravel vaccum to syphon through.

My other question is on tankmates. A lot of websites and folks say that axies don't do well with tankmates, but I'm thinking of either adding a few yellow mystery snails in, or a big red-tailed black shark (which is about 3.5 inches - about 18cm?) in to keep the algae under control. The big chunk of driftwood I have in the tank is nice, but its starting to get slimy. I figured either snails or suckerfish but what do you guys reckon?

Snails have a nasty habit of exploding in population, and I have a fear that a snail may latch onto a sleeping axie and bore a big hole in it skin... that, and snails tend to be pretty messy and foul the water up after a while.

The red-tailed shark would be a nice addition, their mouths arent designed to pick at axie-gills like guppies/goldfish tend to, but the shark is also faster than an axie and should be able to avoid being snapped at.

Again, what are your folks experiences with such tankmates? Any info or insights will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Swiftrat,

A couple of things

Gravel: It have to be the size of big pebbles, river pebbles. Just make sure that they cant fit in the mouth of an adult axie. I personaly have sand with no problems at all with it.

Tank Mates: Unless you either want the fish to be feeders or to eat the axies gills dont add any to the tank. Any thing that moves in the tank my axies will bite ate it, and normally get a finger or two of mine lol.

Snails on the other hand are different. I have heard that they have been a pain, not only to they breed alot and fast, but they have been known to suck the slim coating off the axie. so I personally wouldnt have them in the tank.

Any way I must go as I ment to be working

Good luck with your choice!

I've never heard of any snail latching on to anything anything and boring a hole in it except some types of predatory snails that live in the ocean. I'm not sure if the mystery snails cause the trapping appendage problem like there have been with smaller newts but I don't think they reproduce like mad in the aquarium because they generally lay their eggs a foot or two out of the water to prevent predation and the babies drop in. Not only that but they are not hemaphroditic so you need to have one of each sex anyway. As for the red tailed shark(Epalzeorhynchus bicolor), they're not built to eat algae, and they can get quite aggressive in general, even more so to conspecifics when they see a red tail. Maybe I'm going out on a limb but if the red stimulates aggression and your axie gills are red then... yeah, probably wouldn't be good. Plecostomus are good for algae but they get awfully big and have been known to latch on to other organisms, probably axies too, does anyone have experience with this? Would a dwarf species(of course not small enough to fit in an axie's mouth) work?

Snails are a nuisance..particularly the rams horn. They breed like wild fire and get everywhere.

I haven't been able to try one but I was advised they have fragile dispositions but you try a golden apple snail which are ok with axies.

Plecs may sometimes graze on your axies slime covering but generally they are compatible.

On stones, If the stones are 25-30mm diameter it will be uncomfortable for your axies and they don't like it. Try something smaller and slabs of slate. i intend to post a couple of pics in the gallery...take a look and look at others set-ups too. Quite a lot of happy diversity to be seen.

Yeah, I took everything (fish, axies and gravel) out of the tank bar the water. I got some "playground sand" from the garden shop, boiled it thoroughly and baked it in the oven to sterilize it. (The local pet stores didn't sell any special aquarium sand... pretty lame, but then - I do live in a small crappy town)...

So I've added the sand to the axie tank and have put in some dressing stones and a few slabs of slate. I have a filter with carbon in it running to clear up the water, and I have a small group of "test guppies" in there to see if the sand/slate/rock mix is ok. So far, so good. All guppies are still alive.

I'll be moving the axies back in soon, but in the meantime, whaddayas reckon about the photo?

http://www.evoker.net/~swiftrat/fish...l/axietank.jpg

Those dressing stones... they are about 2-3cm sized... =:/ They wouldnt both the axies too much would they? I can take em out before I add the axies back in, but what can I replace 'em with?

PS: Boiling sand is easy enough, but is it necessary to bake it as well? If I remove the 2-3cm dressing stones, I can easily add more sand.

Looks ok to me but you might want to group the stones on an area rather than scattered.

You may also want to remove the guppies until the tank is cycled. Apparently the ammonia produced by their waste can irritate (their gills and skin and even create sores)until it is converted. Follow the main site instructions regarding cycling.

If you boiled and baked I would guess it's probably as sterile as it's going to be. Time to be patient now and get the cycle started.

I don't think there's any need to bake your sand ... At some later stage there will be some sort of living things in there anyway.

For instance, I've simply washed my sand thoroughly using tap water.

Stones are allright for as long they dont have any cutting edge that could harm the axies when they're swimming around in the tank. ...

As for the size, anything that doesn't fit in the mouth should be ok.

I'm only having sand in the tank and the axies are happy with that.

I would not add the shark. I have kept several red tailed sharks over the years and while they are "fun" and pretty I think they would not make a good tank mate for axolotls. Red tailed sharks dart about fast and just can't help but to strike tank mates for fun. The fast movement would startle the axolotls, and the strikes would damage them.

If you only have one apple snail in the tank it will not reproduce (they take 2). If you do happen to get an adult female that does lay eggs in your tank just scrape them off. Apple snails lay their eggs in a big mass above the water line. So they are easy to find.

Yeah, I'll be removing the guppies soon. Gunna add some more sand. It's only 1cm deep, I'd like to give it a good 2 inches. *boils a heap of sand* I'll bunch the rocks up into groups too while I'm at it.

I also removed the shark a few days back and put him into a tropical tank - reason being is I got rid of the driftwood in the axie tank that was covered in algae and chucked it into the tropical tank. The plecos are going nuts on it.

I don't think I'll get any snails at all. I don't want to risk it.

Rightio... all that's in the tank now is bare sand. No pebbles or rocks at all. I'll be putting the slabs of slate back in soon, as with the plastic plants.

Swiftrat,

It looks very nice, let us know how it goes for you!!

Someone asked about the possibility of adding Plecostimus (Plecos) to their Axolotl tank. I wouldn't recomend it. Plecostomus have been known to latch on to other animals in order to eat the slime coating off of them. This happens with goldfish and koi in particular. I'd imagine it could happen with Axolotls as well. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and I prefer to err on the side of caution.

If you need algae eaters for your tank, I'd recomend either chinese or gold algae eaters. I'm not sure of their Latin names at this time (I'm away from my books). They can get large enough that the Axies can't eat them, and they don't have the slime-eating habits of Plecos. Keep in mind, this is just an educated guess on my part

I have had chinese algae eaters that had to be disposed of because they started attaching themselves to fish and sucking them literally to death. I wouldn't recommend them as tank mates either.

Really? Thats the first I'd ever heard of Chinese algae eaters with those kinds of habits.

Yes, really. They even killed adult angel fish.

I've got a 2 common plecostomus, 1 red spot plecostomus and a bristlenose catfish in with my Axolotls at the moment. They've been fine so far (the commons have been in there for two weeks, the others one week) and they've been great at cleaning up any excess uneaten food. The red spot is about 20cm long and the others less than 10. I'll let everyone know if anything goes wrong, however.

I've found Chinese Algae eaters to be really mental, one of mine always digs holes in the bottom of the tank and then he just sits in them.

Eric - wasn't it you that just had a baby jump out of your tank recently? Might one of the pleco tank mates of scared or chased him? Plecos I have kept in the past fought over hiding places in the tank.

Yeah, they can be territorial over hiding places, especially as they get larger and the number of suitable hiding spots decreases. Common plecos can easily rech sizes of 18 inches or larger, so be prepared to move them.

Commonm plecs are only semi-vegetarians (at best) as juveniles and will need things to "grind" on as they age, like driftwood. If they can't find anything suitable, they'll use fish/your axolotl as a substitute. Unless you've got a ton of algae and uneaten food debris in your tank the fish are likely to starve to death. Are you giving them anything to eat apart from the axie leftovers? Raw potato and boiled spinach were favourites of the common plec I used to have.
Even if everyone is being fed appropriately, I'd get rid of everyone but the bristlenose. These stay small enough to live in your current tank and are peaceful vegetarians.

Chinese algae eaters only eat algae when they're young. As they age, they WILL attack fish. It is DEFINITELY a habit of theirs; it's what they do. Their main food preference is the mucous coating on the skin of fish (or axolotls...)
Completely different looking but for some reason often mis-labelled in all the stores I've been to, are the gentle, harmless Siamese algae eaters. See the link below for photos of each- they could be what you've dealt with Brian? Or you got lucky and had a docile CAE! Siamese algae eaters are one of the few fish sold as algae eaters that actually live up to the description and won't starve to death on an algae-only diet.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/saes.htm

http://www.planetcatfish.com

Ask the experts over there if you'd like more info on which catfish do/don't make suitable tankmates for axolotls.