Baby axolotls

larn

larn

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I have just bought 3 baby axolotls which are 3 months old, I have a few questions about how to look after them.

What is the best food?, at the momemt i have frozen blood worms, but i read somewhere that babys prefer live food, if this is true which live food?

They have been very placid and slow, they seem to just want to idle, is it normal?

The water i used was dechlorinated by natural evaporation and i have put a plant in there, is there anything else they need? i didn't put a filter in there because they look so delicate and i don't want them to get hurt. i think i need some PH testing because i have no idea what it is.

they all seem to be OK but i did notice one of them floating about for a bit, then he came down, hope that's normal.

thanks

Larn
 
babies do prefer live food, but if they're 3 months old and taking froIzen bloodworms that should be fine until they can handle chopped up earthworms. My larvae was not active at all until it started getting bigger, as long as they're eating and looking healthy I wouldn't be concerned, axolotls arnt the most active creatures. I wouldn't worry about your ph honestly, it's ammonia and nitrite you dont want. As long as it doens't look like they cannot go to the bottom floating isn't a bad sign. juveniles tend to float more than adults. Is your tank cycled? If not your gonna have to do waterchanges whenever you get an ammonia reading
 
OK, I will continue to give them the blood worms, i have put in a plant that was taken out of another cycled tank (my mini aquarium) but that's it.

should i add some more bacteria from my cycled tank?

I'm new to axolotls and also to keeping fish, so i've only just learnt about the science bits, if you have any advice let me know
 
How are you keeping the axolotls? if they're in like a ten gallon tank I'd recomend testing your water to see if the plant didn't have enough bacteria to seed the tank, and if your still getting ammonia to move some more cycled tank media over to the axolotl tank. If your keeping them in a tupperware container(not sure how big yours are) I'd just do daily waterchange, as it won't be too hard to replace the water in a tupperware.
 
They are in a plastic storage container, dimensions are about 20" by 15" the woman i bought them from had them all in little containers, so my box is failry big in comparison.

I can take a water sample to my pet shop, they do testing for free. maybe i can get 2 samples one from the container and from the aquarium
 
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I have decided to keep doing water changes until their tank is ready, i will cycle the tank for a couple of weeks i think.

I just want to ask again, are you sure it normal for the babys to be so still?? all 3 of them stay in the same place for ages and only move very slowly.

is there any visual signs of disease or distress i can look out for?
 
Yep you can look for curled forward gills and a curled tip of the tail! These are common stress signs. With disease you'll probably not miss it if it's there. Watch for any fluffy looking stuff on gills or limbs, that'll be fungus for you!

Anything else that appears check Axolotl Sanctuary . In fact have a look through some of the stuff on there, such as axolotl illnesses, to get a bit of knowledge on what might go wrong. But of course any concerns be confident to post them up on here!

As long as they are eating and pooping fine there shouldn't be anything going wrong internally. Just make sure you get a test kit and keep check of the temp so if anything does go wrong you can start ruling factors out! =]
 
None of them have curled tail tips or any fungus, however eating and pooping... that's other thing i had a concern about since i've had them (3 days ago) they were eating the bloodworms fine but they have not eaten much since yesterday. i did a water change and decided to seperate them for their own safety, so they each have a box, and i put more bloodworms in, but they were a different brand, very thin strands in comparison to the ones i had before but looks like they've not touched them

When i get home from work later i will check to see if they have eaten any more.

thanks for your help
 
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