Frozen brine shrimp/bloodworms

Hi,
I have a 3 yr old axolotl who I am currently feeding on those frozen cubes of blood worms and brine shrimp. I wondered if anybody could tell me how many cubes he could be eating and how often? I've found so many conflicting reports on the internet so hopefully somebody here can help me.

Also, how quickly after feeding him should I be cleaning up the mess he makes whilst he eats them?

Thanks
Katie :happy:

I can't give you an actual amount, but I did want to say that earthworms or axolotl pellets are more nutritionally complete for an adult axolotl. You could try giving him about a cube and a half, more if he eats it. I would do any clean up as soon as he's done to keep the water quality up.

If it can help give an idea, I fed my axolotl live black worms when he was little and would give him about half a gold ball size and just leave them there until they're done since they were live. With pellets I fed him as much as he would eat, he would eventually lose interest and then no more food for a day or two. I feed him earthworms now and he'll eat 1 or 2 nightcrawlers every couple of days, depending on size. Earthworms are the best nutritionally and to keep the tank clean if you could go with those.

Axies should move on to earthworms or pellets at about 3-4" as bloodworm and brineshrimp are calcium defeicient.

In the UK you can get works from yorkshire worms, or worms direct very easily.

He was eating crickets as well until very recently but I was told crickets weren't suitable by my local aquatics shop, although the fact they didn't suggest earthworms when everyone on here does is making me a little suspicious of how much they actually know!

I will have to find him some worms If you order them of the internet, how do you keep them alive until it's time for them to be eaten?

You can keep worms in the refrigerator. As a data point, 500 "small" Canadian night crawlers take up 4 1/2 gal zip lock plastic containers.

Easiest thing for a beginner is to get a wormery starter kit - bucket, substrate, worms and food. You can keep it in a shed or outhouse as long as it's protected from frost, or you can keep it indoors - I have 2 in my kitchen and one outside. Get tiger or dendrobaena worms, they should breed quite readily and keep you in worms for a long time - I have over a dozen axies and only have to top up twice a year.

Lobworms are much bigger, and need to be kept in the fridge, and won't breed.