Just curious...

How active are your axolotls? I've only had mine for a couple weeks now, but he's SUPER active. He's hardly ever sitting still, always rooting around in the rocks and swimming up and down the sides of his tank! Is this normal? He gets really pink with all the activity, but I'm pretty sure it's not stress, as he goes back to his normal white colour when he's sleeping. Maybe it's because he's still young? I'm not sure of the age, but he's only about 5 inches right now, from nose to tip of his tail. Anyway, I was just curious... how active are your axolotls?

Young ones are pretty active - it sounds normal for a 5 inch baby. I'm not too sure on the colour change thing, as I don't have any white axolotls, however I find that my big boy's red gills get brighter when he's active and playing around - also after he's had a nice big juicy worm to eat! So I wouldn't worry too much about it. Make sure you don't have anything sharp in the tank that it can hurt itself on - sometimes they work themselves up too much and can damage their delicate skin and gills on rocks, cheap plastic plants, tubing and air hoses as well as filters and stuff. Smooth edged rocks and plastic plants are fine, just make sure they are not sharp in any way.

If you want you can actually play games with you axi - I do!!! However I over did it when I was off work for a few weeks - now when ever I come into the room they want to play a game, and for me to feed them!!! CRAZY!!! I always give in cause they look so cute when they beg!!!

Sounds fun! What kind of games exactly? My little guy is already pretty friendly, so I'm sure he'd love some games!

both of mine love the 'chase your finger round the glass' game, basic but entertains for minutes at a time *g*

i put my finger near the water and make lil circle movements and hari stands on her hind legs and spins round its well cute.
i went to get an air stone yesterday cos of everyone saying bout their axys floating to the top on it..then i found out i have to get some kinda air pump lol. but my filter spits out water can i get some kinda hose to attach them?

mine play eat mummy's finger then chase her around when shes trying to re plant the plant lol

when i feed them i put my hand in the tank and they normally come up to have a sit on me before they will eat. Cute!

im stil really scared about puttin my finger near them! lol

like if feeding them pellets i just kinda drop them and hope they see them rather than let em take it out my hand. ive seen harriet snap at a worm and it instantly snap in half and i know its only a worm but still, their bites look pretty powerful!

They have no teeth and i promise that it dont hurt one bit! (well they do have teeth but only for gripping).

And anyway i bet your finger wont even fit in there mouths!

ok well ill start off small with ozwold then work my way up in size order of axys.

I've never been bitten by any of my axi's. They play with my finger and sit on my hand and chase me and stuff, but have never bitten me, and i hand feed them, they are pretty careful. It took me about 4 months before i would even put my hand in the tank, and that was why he was up the other end! It took me about another 2 months before I would put my hand anywhere near him, let alone TOUCH HIM!!! But now I have no problem!!!

both mine let me pat them, and if i attempt to pat them before i've fed them, they'll take a bite at me. it doesn't hurt at all - it feels exactly like a suction cup! once juju was sitting in my palm, happily sucking on my finger as if it were a pacifier, it was so cute *g*

I'm also moving my little finger every now and then in front of their mouths to see if they are (still) hungry ... if they suck the finger down to the nail, that means they (still) are

Feeding them off the hand is the best part of it

do the black axies with brown spots eat of your hand and sit on you or just the albinos mine seems pretty tense when i put my hand in and wont eat out my hand i got it yesterday and it still wont eat and it dosent even swim around it just lies there lifeless what should i do

behaviour doesn't go by colour, every axolotl is an individual. you only got it yesterday - give it some time! some are pretty tame straight off, some swim around heaps, some run away from your hand and don't move much at all. it all depends. give it some time to settle in and get to know you - soon it'll recognise you as the 'food bringer' and come up to the glass when it sees you! just be patient

i got oswold from the same place as you carl and awww theyre both related thats so cute lol. but anyways..oswold was really like omg what the <font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font> was that and batters himself round the tank when i touched him but now hes cool wi me.

lol oswold is a cool name can sum1 think of a name for my axie please

Have any studies been done on axie intelligence? Falkor's learning to eat from my fingers now, but I want to teach him tricks. I had a 4-eyed fish I taught to jump through a hoop for food- she understood that she needed to hop through it, not swim under it... what do you think my odds are of teaching Falkor to swim through a tunnel? His eyes are pretty weak as far as I can tell- he reacts to light and shadows, but doesn't seem to distinguish individual people or shapes very well. Any thoughts on their ability to learn/be conditioned to certain stimuli? I'm sure Falkor will turn out to be a genius..., but if there've been any studies done on the subject, I'm interested in hearing about them!

P.S. Carl- I answered it in another thread already, but here goes again anyway! Call him Elliot! Or Mr. Bojangles!

Is falkor's name from never ending story Leah (sad Mikki)?

Dunno about intelligent but they are clever enough to recognise that when you walk near tank it generally means food.

hopefully mine will start to reconise me somone told me that fish i dont no about axies forget stuff after 5 seconds i dont think that is true or leahs fish wouldnt remember that they have to jump through a hoop

Actually there have been studies on gold fish that prove that their memories last longer then 3-5 seconds like previously thought. They have trained goldfish to press down a little leaver/button thingy that realises food. Now you couldn't train somthing if it only had a memory span of 4 seconds!!!

I'm usually the only one that goes near the axi tank - it's in my room so the kids can't get it - but when ever someone else stands over the tank or puts their finger in they seem to react the same as they do with me - so I don't think mine caan reconise different people either, not a big prob though.