bitenomnom
New member
Hello,
I live in my university's apartment-style dorms, and I (probably to the delight of my axolotls!) have ended up with the coldest room. Usually I am gone over the weekends and leave my door shut, and because the thermostat is right by the heater, my room never gets very warm (but especially while the door is shut). So when I came home today (Monday), for instance, after being gone and having my door shut since Friday, the axolotls' tank was at 9 degrees Celsius. I am finding that during the cold winter weeks it usually doesn't go above 13, maybe 15 if my door stays open to the main area for the whole day. (Also depends slightly on whether the thermostat is set to the "emergent heat" setting. My dormmates shut it off during the weekend which might be why it was down to 9.)
Because of this, I have been feeding them only about once a week as that appears to be all they need. Is this okay? Or am I being deceived by their apparent sufficient plumpness?
Additionally, my winter break starts this weekend. I can easily stop by once a week to feed them and do a water change, but I was wondering about how the temperature would affect how I ought to do this. If the tank is 9-13 degrees all the time while I'm gone, will they still be hungry enough to eat their usual amount each week? Or should I assume it would be best to reduce the portion size to avoid the risk of rotting regurgitated food in the tank? (I also have a corn snake so my instinct is "if it's really cold, err on the side of feeding a bit too little"!)
In case of emergency (like the giant blizzard snowstorm we just got last week!!), would my axolotls be okay for slightly more than a week, say a week and a half? (My family will be out of state only for a few days but would probably extend our stay if it looks like we would have to drive through bad weather.)
And one other question, is there any worry about the temperature getting TOO low? I can only assume even the slowly flowing heat from the other, warmer rooms into mine would be able to keep the axolotls warm enough. (Usually the temperature in the main living area is around 68-73 degrees F). In other words, to me it seems unlikely that the water would get too close to freezing where it is. Do you think the temperature of the tank would have reached "equilibrium" with the outside temperature and the dorm temperature over the 3 days I was gone? (In other words, that if the temperatures outside and inside stay the same, it would get no colder over one week than it did over those three days?) (I know, I just finished thermal physics, I should calculate it or something!!)
Sorry for the long post! From what I have read I think they will be fine on the schedule I have planned for them. But I thought I would ask about some of the finer points. Also on a related note, I can only assume they would be quite happy and comfortable at this temperature? The thought of getting a heater for an axolotl seems kind of counterintuitive since I just spent the whole summer trying to keep the temperature below 19!
I live in my university's apartment-style dorms, and I (probably to the delight of my axolotls!) have ended up with the coldest room. Usually I am gone over the weekends and leave my door shut, and because the thermostat is right by the heater, my room never gets very warm (but especially while the door is shut). So when I came home today (Monday), for instance, after being gone and having my door shut since Friday, the axolotls' tank was at 9 degrees Celsius. I am finding that during the cold winter weeks it usually doesn't go above 13, maybe 15 if my door stays open to the main area for the whole day. (Also depends slightly on whether the thermostat is set to the "emergent heat" setting. My dormmates shut it off during the weekend which might be why it was down to 9.)
Because of this, I have been feeding them only about once a week as that appears to be all they need. Is this okay? Or am I being deceived by their apparent sufficient plumpness?
Additionally, my winter break starts this weekend. I can easily stop by once a week to feed them and do a water change, but I was wondering about how the temperature would affect how I ought to do this. If the tank is 9-13 degrees all the time while I'm gone, will they still be hungry enough to eat their usual amount each week? Or should I assume it would be best to reduce the portion size to avoid the risk of rotting regurgitated food in the tank? (I also have a corn snake so my instinct is "if it's really cold, err on the side of feeding a bit too little"!)
In case of emergency (like the giant blizzard snowstorm we just got last week!!), would my axolotls be okay for slightly more than a week, say a week and a half? (My family will be out of state only for a few days but would probably extend our stay if it looks like we would have to drive through bad weather.)
And one other question, is there any worry about the temperature getting TOO low? I can only assume even the slowly flowing heat from the other, warmer rooms into mine would be able to keep the axolotls warm enough. (Usually the temperature in the main living area is around 68-73 degrees F). In other words, to me it seems unlikely that the water would get too close to freezing where it is. Do you think the temperature of the tank would have reached "equilibrium" with the outside temperature and the dorm temperature over the 3 days I was gone? (In other words, that if the temperatures outside and inside stay the same, it would get no colder over one week than it did over those three days?) (I know, I just finished thermal physics, I should calculate it or something!!)
Sorry for the long post! From what I have read I think they will be fine on the schedule I have planned for them. But I thought I would ask about some of the finer points. Also on a related note, I can only assume they would be quite happy and comfortable at this temperature? The thought of getting a heater for an axolotl seems kind of counterintuitive since I just spent the whole summer trying to keep the temperature below 19!
(When I fed them 7 days ago and came back 2 days ago, they looked almost the same as they had when I'd fed them. They only became noticeably slimmer around today, maybe partially because the tank has been around 15 since I got back as opposed to 9 while I was gone.)