Gravel/sand

Hello every one. I am new to owning an axolotl, well it is my daughters (10). my question is to do with my gravel. I am using an old fish tank 76lt. It already had gravel in it and i have been reading that gravel is not good for them, my question is can i just put the sand over the top of the gravel or do i need to change it over completely. I only go the axolotl yesterday and i do not want to stress them out more than they already have been after taking them from the pet store. They have not settled in yet so could i change it now or would this cause them undue stress. I don't want to do anything wrong to them. The pet store owner said that it does not matter what is on the floor of the tank. His tanks have gravel on them, my gravel size is approx 3-5mm. Any help that you could offer would be great.

Thanks in advance, this site has lots of great ideas and information.

You really need to use sand. It is really the best.

I think sand is best also. You can use play sand or pool filter sand that is the cheap. I would take all the gravel out and put in sand. When every you clean the tank it will get mixed up and they will end up eating it.

Thank you very much for your help. I will try and get some today. will it them out if ii take them out an put them i bucket or should i let them settle in first.

well i have gotten some sand in the tank now, i took them out and changed it all over. We have 1 black one and one albino axolotl, don't know what their species names are.

The black one's name is TACO (mexican food and he is a mexican walking fish and my sister thought it just fit) my sister owns him.

The albino one is called MUMBLES as he is always smiling like the penguin from happy feet, this one belongs to my 10 year old daughter. She felt that name was appropriate for him.

They have had their first bits of food today since we got them. They were not interested until today. They had some raw prawns, they seemed to like them.

I guess they are just like tropical fish in that they need to settle into their environment, I have a 150lt tropical tank and the silver shark took about 1 week to settle in, in this time he never ate, but when he did finally settle he woofed into the food and 1 of the other fish. He must have been hungrier than what i fed him.

I hope that the axolotl enjoy their new home and i will keep looking for ideas from this site.

Thank you for all your help and information that is on here, it is great.

sand is the best my axie used to eat gravel and you could see it in her.

Sand rules.