Long Car Trip With Axie

T

tg23

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Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has any tips for me. I am going to be travelling across Australia by vehicle (a van), the trip will take about 4-5 days and axie will be coming with me, have had her about 4 years, she is a full grown golden albino. It will also be smack bang in the middle of summer and will be travelling across the desert. I imagine temps will be over 40 degrees C. I am relocating to the other side of the country, hence the trip.

Have checked out the option of boarding her then flying her over but the boarding facilities have no air-con and didn't look like somewhere I want to leave her.

So far it is going to go something like this:

She will be travelling in a small plastic style aquarium either with large rocks or no substrate on the bottom, (with lid) the small aquarium will be sitting inside a larger storage container. She will be strapped down with foam latex underneath to hopefully absorb any travel roughness. Her water will be chilled (working on this at the moment) there will be a small pump cycling chilled water through her small aquarium. Will probably also pack ice around her in the large storage container and change regularly. In addition the vehicle will be air conditioned.

We will be stopping overnight every night and she will be fed and rested at this time. Can also do some water changes if need too at this time.

I just want to make sure she gets there safely with minimal stress. Has anyone else had similar experiences? I am stubborn and rehoming her is not an option!!

Any tips would be great!

Thanks.
 
I'm sorry, you say you're going to strap down your axolotl? I hope you mean the small tank she's in.. How will you have a small pump working while you're in the car?
Packing ice around the container is a good idea, you might want to consider putting the small tank in an esky with the ice packs around the side (inside) that way she will lose less cool water and not gain any hot air.
Also I am interested in how the water will be chilled..
But good luck, sounds like you love her like an owner should ;)
 
It's great that you are giving this a lot of thought! :D

All I can think to suggest:

tg23 said:
She will be travelling in a small plastic style aquarium either with large rocks or no substrate on the bottom, (with lid) the small aquarium will be sitting inside a larger storage container.
Click to expand...

I would leave it bare bottom as large rocks will move about with the car motion and will in all likelihood crush the axolotl.

Fill the container as much as you can to prevent the water from sloshing around which may stress the axolotl and of course ensure lid is securely fastened.

tg23 said:
She will be strapped down with foam latex underneath to hopefully absorb any travel roughness. Her water will be chilled (working on this at the moment) there will be a small pump cycling chilled water through her small aquarium. Will probably also pack ice around her in the large storage container and change regularly. In addition the vehicle will be air conditioned.
Click to expand...

Where would we be without airconditioning? :rolleyes:

If you have an esky, this would be an ideal 'outer' container to put icepacks around the 'inner' container and the esky will keep the temperature more constant than a plastic container.

With air conditioning and changing the ice packs reguarly this should be sufficient to keep her temporary home cool. I wouldn't worry about 'pumping chilled water through' as the water movement may stress her.

I'm sure you already know this, but better safe than sorry - remember to take the dechlorinator with you as the water will need to be changed daily.

That's all I can think of at present, hopefully someone who has been on a similar treck can advise more.

Good luck!

Cheers Jacq.
 
The container will be strapped down I meant, sorry about that. Water will be chilled by running some hose through a travel cooler (car one) filled with liquid and sealed then into her tank with a battery operated pump using a VERY slow flow.

Thanks for the tips, an esky does make more sense in that case. Not sure about the water level and filling it all the way, we were thinking we will need to not fill it to allow for hills and things? Not sure about that one yet. Wondering if it would slosh if it was full all the way, don't think there are many hills on the trek though. Will be taking my bottle of tri start with me for sure (water conditioner).
 
which direction? As you go further in-land the water quality from the tap gets very poor and in a lot of places you cant drink the water so I would be careful of what you put your axolotls in.
:supercool:
 
Have changed some plans now. Have decided to purchase a proper aquarium chiller and run it off an invertor. Chiller is on its way and all the relevant bits to run it, extra battery etc. Thinking she will just be in a large storage container/esky now. Does anybody know if it would be a problem if the container/esky wasn't see through? Would this make her disorientated or anything?

Also, is distilled water OK to use for water changes along the way? As mentioned, water quality will be poor in the middle of nowhere.

Will be heading from Perth to the ACT to answer that question.
 
tg23 said:
Have changed some plans now. Have decided to purchase a proper aquarium chiller and run it off an invertor. Chiller is on its way and all the relevant bits to run it, extra battery etc. Thinking she will just be in a large storage container/esky now. Does anybody know if it would be a problem if the container/esky wasn't see through? Would this make her disorientated or anything?
Click to expand...
She will actually like being in the dark, axies love dark cool places.

tg23 said:
Also, is distilled water OK to use for water changes along the way? As mentioned, water quality will be poor in the middle of nowhere.
Click to expand...
I am unsure about distilled water, I have used spring water before and it did the job.
 
Distilled water is the worst to use. It basically has nothing in it. No minerals or disolved salts.
 
Thought I would post an update on this....the trip is now complete. 3800kms and 4.5 days on the road with an axie in the boot of a small hatchback. The whole thing was very successful and she is now settling into her new home on the other side of the country. (Sounds insane!, probably was!)

It basically went down like this:
60 litre marine ice box filled to about 40 litres with holes drilled into to side to run filter, airstone and chiller.
Chiller rigged up to deep cycle battery and invertor.
Temps were very high in places but she stayed stable thanks to the chiller and bringing her into cabin rooms at night with air con and housing her in a small storage container.
Couple of small water changes done along the way.
Fed twice along the way.
Also chiller was set to 22, it was just too hot to run it any lower and there would not have been sufficient power.

The trip was quite rough in places (up and down hills, bumpy etc) and we could hear the water sloshing around which was a bit scary. She showed no signs of stress the entire journey.

It is a lot of effort and extremly costly to pull this off (if you don't already own a chiller it would cost around $1000 for all the gear to make this happen. It was about 1/3 of that to fly but I didn't like her chances of making it once I fully sussed that out. Be very careful that the car battery and alternator are powerful enough to drive everything (we only just scraped it in).

Hope this information may help someone in the future. Thanks for all your tips!
 
Wow and I thought I was stressed by the 3-km ride over cobblestones to my new house! Congratulations to you for bringing it off. Upside is, you now have a cooler (lucky you!) and now you could always fall back on a job as an axolotl transporter. :rolleyes:

-Eva
 
tg23 said:
Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has any tips for me. I am going to be travelling across Australia by vehicle (a van), the trip will take about 4-5 days and axie will be coming with me, have had her about 4 years, she is a full grown golden albino. It will also be smack bang in the middle of summer and will be travelling across the desert. I imagine temps will be over 40 degrees C. I am relocating to the other side of the country, hence the trip.

Have checked out the option of boarding her then flying her over but the boarding facilities have no air-con and didn't look like somewhere I want to leave her.

So far it is going to go something like this:

She will be travelling in a small plastic style aquarium either with large rocks or no substrate on the bottom, (with lid) the small aquarium will be sitting inside a larger storage container. She will be strapped down with foam latex underneath to hopefully absorb any travel roughness. Her water will be chilled (working on this at the moment) there will be a small pump cycling chilled water through her small aquarium. Will probably also pack ice around her in the large storage container and change regularly. In addition the vehicle will be air conditioned.

We will be stopping overnight every night and she will be fed and rested at this time. Can also do some water changes if need too at this time.

I just want to make sure she gets there safely with minimal stress. Has anyone else had similar experiences? I am stubborn and rehoming her is not an option!!

Any tips would be great!

Thanks.
Click to expand...

it should be perfectly fine just make sure nothing in the tank to move alot
and also put it in a styrofoam water cooler instead
 
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