Blackie doesn't know how to eat...

Or should I say, she knows how to eat, but she doesn't know how to find food. It always takes me about half an hour to make sure she has eaten enough. I'll tell you more. She is very keen to eat, and will readily come to me when I put my hand in the tank. But, instead of her taking the piece of meat or pellet etc from my hand, she bites me. She pulls my fingers, my skin etc, but she doesn't understand where her food is. If I put her food on the floor of the tank, she keeps looking around,and sorta sniffing, but can't find any.Did anybody else encounter this problem?
I don't know whether her sense of smell is so bad, or what. I don't mind spending half an hour every second night feeding her,haha, but she will starve when I go on holiday. If I try to move my hand and food, she will follow it, but still only wants to eat my hand....

She might like live food better. Maybe live worms?

Karrie, hi. Thanks for your reply. I thought of the worms, too, but last time one of my axies got very ill was a day or two after she had eaten live worms...So am bit worried they may have bacteria in them...I will go and buy some glass shrimps, and will keep them in quarantine tank for 30 days. So at least in 30 days time Blackie will be able to hunt, til then, I think I will keep up half-hour feeding with her

Oh, and Blackie's sister/brother Orangina learned to eat from hand/tank floor already ages ago...But I think Blackie is not a very smart axie...oops

What about live brine shrimp? Or use a bubbler when you feed so it moves the food around. I have ghost shrimp in my axie tank they are a good snack when he can catch them.

Live brine shrimp wouldn't work. For one, they're too small to be noticed, and two, live in brine water (salt). They die off pretty fast in freshwater, so risk fouling the tank up.

Try using a plain glass candle bowl, pop a frozen bloodworm block in it. Make sure the bowl is on it's side, so she can stick her head in.
Gently swish the cube so it breaks up (with one finger) then get her to follow your finger into the bowl.
She won't have a choice but to find it then!

Amber, I'll try the bowl with her tonight...Hope she will understand...

Ever thought she's just biting you because she simply enjoys the taste of human flesh?
In all seriously, good luck, people have given good suggestions.
Out of curiousity, how long have to had her?

Sara,yeah,haha. That's a bit spooky, isn't it. Blackie, an axie with a taste for human flesh. That would make a good horror film,lol. I have had her for about 2 months. Hope I'll have some success with the bowl tonight

*beams* Good luck with it.
It's worked for dozens of axolotl that I've been involved with
I've not had a failure yet. May take a little while for her to learn, but after that...

I agree, as long as she's hungry and motivated, she'll learn to use the dish - eventually. The problem seems to be that she's learned quite well to associate "big person beside the tank" with the idea of food, then gets confused by those juicy looking fingers that wiggle so nicely. You may have to remove both your fingers, and yourself from the room, in order for her to learn to associate food-smell and feeding-bowl with eating.

No luck yet. She goes to her cave to sleep when I remove my fingers from the tank, and doesn't go to investigate the food bowl further.. Could be she is not that hungry, tho, as she seems to spend most of her time sleeping in the last few days, instead of being active... Will keep trying

I had this problem at first with Elroy i have now found that if I put a bit of muscle defrosted of course lol in his tank with a big pair of plastic tweezers i got from the pet shop for feeding lizards snakes etc (really cheap) he did the same as going for my fingers but if you keep wigling it around in front of her face then she will keep trying to go for it then just release the food as she snaps for it they soon get the food as there is no finger to try lol. Takes a couple of times but i'm sure you will get there in the end its never failed for me