Illness/Sickness: A bit concern

Last week I transferred my axolotls from a already established 10 gallon tank to a new 15 gallon breeder tank because they were getting too cramped. Both axies are about 15cm in size. This new tank has not had the chance to cycle but I am being vigorous with the water parameters because of its importance. However my axies are acting really strange ever since they've been put in the new tank.

The one axie used to constantly swim at the top of the tank and was real active. And other axie, granted it use to sit on the bottom, would come out of hiding during the day and retreat back during the night. Light didn't seem to both them. Because of my impatience with waiting for them to grow in size, I used to feed them a full night crawler a day, or every other day if they were being fussy and couldn't keep it down.

Now all they do is hide. They have been in the tank for a week and a half. If they are out of their hiding place they immediately go into hiding as if light is the devil. They are not very active, like they used to be. But my main concern is that they are having a hard time eating. Since I realize that they aren't even interested in night crawlers at the moment, I went back to feeding them trout worms because they're smaller in size and easier for them to put down. However, they take FOREVER to eat the dang things. They grab it, spit it out, grab it, spit it out, grab it, swallow, spit it out. And finally after about ten minutes they get one small trout worm down. And sometimes when I go to bed at night, I'll wake up with a half digested worm at the bottom of the tank. So I'm really concern at this moment. They also flick their gills a lot whenever I turn on the light, if they don't go in hiding.

Any guesses to what's up?

Night crawlers might be a little big for them. Trout worms taste bad. Try some frozen blood worms or blackworms. They will settle in and get back on schedule. As axolotls get larger they eat less often. Be certain water quality is o.k. and back off a little on food.

I have also noticed that my adults are way more sensitive to the light than my juveniles. My juveniles are always sitting out in the open, while my adults are always hidden, may just be a part of reaching maturity.