Question: Just trying to get my head around it.

T

TheWaffleFairy

New member
Joined
Aug 17, 2010
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Isle Of Wight
Country
United Kingdom
Display Name
TheWaffleFairy
Hello! i'm Laura... i am new >.>
I've got quite a large fish tank in the living room that i would like to use to get an axie
just currently doing my research.
Everyones talking about testing water, what am i testing for? PH levels nitrates? ( i've never done this before) Although i have kept many reptiles.

Every site i've been on says a differnt water temp.... so what do you guys recommend?

yesterday i put black sand in the tank (Didn't wash it propper oops) so its pretty cloudy atm, I've added 3 live plants including some grass, are there any plants harmful to them?

i'm planning on using slate in the tank to create hides ( any objections?)

And last but not least lol , ive kept tropical fish for a while and encounterd snails...... i've read that axies eat snails in the wild... if it so happens snails have come in on some plants or something would the axie eat them? and would it be harmful to do so?
 
Hi and welcome! :happy:

As for testing the water, I use the API Master testing kit (freshwater) which although is about £25 or so, will last ages.

It tests for pH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates, and as a 'test-tube' kit it's much more accurate than the cheaper 'test-strips' available.

(PS. I have no links with the Company, but this brand is freely available in the UK and seems to get the 'thumbs-up' on the forum!)

Water temperatures should be 70F as a maximum, but as you're here in the UK I can't see us having a heatwave for a while :D There's loads of threads on cooling if need be, but room temperature is probably okay.

Slate shouldn't be a problem, I believe, it's relatively inert and won't affect the pH, but you may want to remove any sharp edges with a Dremel or something in case the creature may cut itself.

Hope this is of some help :happy:
 
Last edited:
Plants are good but axies have a habit of trying to re-landscape your tank and love digging them up. People usually recommend java fern, java moss and elodea because these are hardy enough to withstand the digging, colder water temps and lower light levels.

As for snails, they have pluses and minuses. Pluses are they help keep your tank balanced by eating up leftover bits of food etc and can make a tasty snack for your axie. The minus is that if they are large then there is a chance your axie might gobble one up and get it stuck, causing impaction which is very bad. On the whole I personally think small snails are good... As long as they are small ones and also as long as they are the type with rounded shells. There is another common type of snail that has a sort of long pointy shell which can cause injury if swallowed by an axie.
 
Thanks guys
Ken is there a min water temp? As my house gets quite cold in winter, i havn't really got my setup together yet but theres a strip on the side thats reading below 64F ( the lowest it goes lol)
I do have a tank heater that can regulate a 70F temp if need be.

Steve i recently had an infestation of both types of those snails hence the reason i have gutted the whole tank out and given away the tropical fish, they got abit out of hand and id tryed EVERYTHING, which resulted in me tipping boiling water over the gravel, havnt seen one since

If i do get some future long shelled visitors any suggestions?
 
TheWaffleFairy said:
If i do get some future long shelled visitors any suggestions?
Click to expand...

hoik 'em out as soon as you see em...

Min comfortable temp for axl is about 14 degrees, colder than that isn't harmful but they will become sluggish and wont have much of an appetite. Over winter my tank at school got down to 8 degrees C and Ro was ok, I think they can withstand temperatures as low as 4 degrees C (in fact if your axl gets ill it's reccomended to pop em in the fridge in a container at about this temp as it helps them regenerate)
 
morphyrichards said:
hoik 'em out as soon as you see em...

Min comfortable temp for axl is about 14 degrees, colder than that isn't harmful but they will become sluggish and wont have much of an appetite. Over winter my tank at school got down to 8 degrees C and Ro was ok, I think they can withstand temperatures as low as 4 degrees C (in fact if your axl gets ill it's reccomended to pop em in the fridge in a container at about this temp as it helps them regenerate)
Click to expand...


I bet they look pretty next to the butter!

Thanks for the help =)
 
But if you do have to resort to fridging them, keep a tight lid on the container, but with breathing-holes in it.

If it manages to get out, then the next time you open the fridge, you may be confronted with a beer-filled axie with a cheese sandwich in one hand, and a ham sandwich in the other, staggering around the fridge, throwing pickled-onions at you, trying to tell you that you're it's "best pal"! :D

(Without delving into Darwinism, but can a fridged axie open a beer-can better than a domestic cat can use a tin-opener?)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
:d
ken worthington said:
if it manages to get out, then the next time you open the fridge, you may be confronted with a beer-filled axie with a cheese sandwich in one hand, and a ham sandwich in the other, staggering around the fridge, throwing pickled-onions at you, trying to tell you that you're it's "best pal"! :d
Click to expand...

rofl :d
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Is this a record? - An entire thread with UK contributors!

We've had a hot summer here (Herefordshire/Welsh border) & I have had great trouble keeping water temp below 20degC (sorry - went all metric several years ago!). I aim for no more than 18degC, & have clipped a small fan on each of my tanks in school (which cools by evaporation by 2-3 degC), as the whole building is well insulated & gets very warm.

I am also a reptile enthusiast. Axolotls are wonderful, & somewhat more interactive than snakes - ENJOY!

Heather & Sparkle
 
Haha I think im gunna have to get fan, me and my fiance have been coming up with ideas of a home made cooling system, i've left the tank running for a couple of days now taking the temp every so often, it seems around mid afternoon when people,electronics and such have been on and the room is warm the temp sits between 24 and 26 which is NO GOOD.
I thought about gettin a chiller til i saw the prices and almost died.....
I have lights in the tank but planning to fill the surface with live plants so it'll be pretty dim in there
I want to get UV lights as they don't seem to get as hot, would there be any trouble with those?
I also read that air stones can lower the temp abit but when i asked in the pet shop this morning the teenage girl behind the counter lookeed at me as if i were a moron...LOL...
 
I'm just here to break your UK streak, don't mind me :)

WaffleFairy, Airation is a good thing, a pump which you can regulate flow will be good for it. a very slow flow pump can be about £16.
it's no secret I hate the general pet shop worker, so I wont say anymore on that.

My tank would sit at 24C also normally, but I have the window open most of the time, and the only electronics that run in there are for the various tanks in there anyway. the window being open has kept it at 19C
so if you can get air circulation going through the room that'll be a good 'and cheeper than a chiller'.

Also OP, I have slate in my tank 'just one slab' to create levels on the floor, but i'm curious as to how you would make hides? slate is very heavy.
 
TheWaffleFairy said:
I have lights in the tank but planning to fill the surface with live plants so it'll be pretty dim in there
I want to get UV lights as they don't seem to get as hot, would there be any trouble with those?
Click to expand...

I use standard energy saving bulbs for my tanks... They give out as much light as ordinary filament bulbs and give off virtually no heat at all and the plants seem to do well under them. I think plants will use any colour of light except for green light (which just gets reflected away by their green leaves, but bluish light is best for them.
 
TheWaffleFairy said:
me and my fiance have been coming up with ideas of a home made cooling system
Click to expand...

I'm really interested in this too... I recently tried a setup with a tube going into and out of a small fridge with lots of tube coiled round inside the fridge, the water goes 'in' through a hole at the top of the fridge and out through a hole at the bottom, the whole tube is completely filled with water and the ends are immersed in the tank. I think that convection causes warm water to be drawn into the higher tube and cooler water to be expelled from the bottom and the whole system should circulate constantly (as long as there are no air bubbles in the tube to block the system from working).

I'd be very interested in what ideas you guys might have come up with for this!
 
Hey cloudy, I think i am going to invest in some sort of air system after all.
As for the slate,I have broken bits left over from the pet shop that they told me i could have
some a thick some are thin but none or them are huge i've just piled them up to create a sort of rocky area to hide around, im still unsure of what i want to use a 'houses' if you will.


As for the cooler, We've messed around with a few ideas And basically came up with exactly what you just said, I think were going to try a mix of things tho as my partner is at work most of the time and the thought of myself drilling holes in a minifridge scares me....we have left over Pc fans so they might come in use, i've had a look around the interweb for DIY chillers, and to be honest alot of it confuses me. I'll just do what i think works and if it does i'll let you know how it went!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Shane douglas:
    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
     +1
    Unlike
  • Thorninmyside:
    Not necessarily but if you’re wanting to continue to grow your breeding capacity then yes. Breeding axolotls isn’t a cheap hobby nor is it a get rich quick scheme. It costs a lot of money and time and deditcation
     +1
    Unlike
  • stanleyc:
    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
     +1
    Unlike
  • Clareclare:
    Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus Japanese . I'm raising them and have abandoned the terrarium at about 5 months old and switched to the aquatic setups you describe. I'm wondering if I could do this as soon as they morph?
     +1
    Unlike
    Clareclare: Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus... +1
    Back
    Top