Axolotl Friends (or food)

I'm off to college in a day, but I'm looking at my tank and it's pretty lame. Especially when the axolotl hides in his cup all day! I want to add some excitement and life to it! So I'm thinking about breeding some guppies or some other type of fish. What's the best type of guppy or fish would go best with an axolotl (or that would be safe for him to EAT). Can I put neon tetras in with it? Or glofish? I know they'd have to be quarantined for 30 days but that's no problem. I don't have room for two separate tanks but I can quarantine them in a little fish bowl no problem. Guppys aren't too hard to take care of. I just want something for my axolotl to have fun with in the tank. He's still about 4 inches now, but by the time I actually buy the guppies he'll be bigger I'm sure, he's growing every day (or should I say it).

Guppies or rosy minnows are your best bet. Also white cloud minnows.
Goldfish and neon tetras are a NO-NO.

Goldfish are very aggressive and won't be afraid of your axies, and will just end up destroying its gills. Not to mention, they tend to be full of parasites that won't go away after quarantine. They also produce a LOT of waste which will foul your water faster.

Neon Tetras would be ok if they weren't tropical. They need much warmer water than your axies can stand.

I've had a good experience with guppies so far. They are terrified of my axies haha. But my little guys are more skilled hunters than I thought they would be, so I'm all out of guppies!

I put cherry shrimp in for my axies to chase. They clean up the tank while they are waiting to get eaten as well.

I didn't mean goldfish, I meant glofish, but the temperatures are probably too low for those too. I'm going to have to do more research on the type of guppies I will get!

I've never really been a fan of putting fish together with axies in a tank. They might nibble on your axie's gills.

Other things axies might like are some toys. (PVC-pipes, moss balls, floating thingies etc) Maybe an idea. I once had an axie who really loved to play with his ping pong ball.

Cherry Shrimp sound really good! Where abouts can I find them? Guppies are going to seem like a lot of trouble, I want something kind of cute and colorful. Also, nutritious for my axie, because he is pretty agressive I'm sure he'll go after them (he went after my grandma's finger!). I need something that is easy to breed and keep. I looked in the guppy sticky thread but it was mostly about breeding, I need to know about breeds not breeding! What are some possible breeds that thrive at 60-70 F?

I have no idea about guppies sorry. I started with 5 cherry shrimp from one shop and 4 from another now I have about 150 shrimp running around my little tank(they have their own tank) and I put about 20 shrimp in my axie tank every few weeks. One of the shrimp was sitting on cookies head and she took off around the tank with a fright then came back looking for it......it was funny.

Wow! The shrimp sound pretty good...

fishcakey said:

I didn't mean goldfish, I meant glofish, but the temperatures are probably too low for those too. I'm going to have to do more research on the type of guppies I will get!

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Ohhhh sorry! Glofish are fine. They are just GMed zebra danios, which are also very tame. While they prefer slightly warmer water, it's nothing like a Tetra so they'll be fine at axie temps.

just keep in mind any other animals, even if they aren't gill nibbling will produce alot more amonia for your tank. Maybe balance it out with some plants?

If you have the room in your tank what about another Axie, my first Axie used to hide away all day but now he has friends he comes out more often than not and the younger ones swim around alot more.

Hi there, I have mollies in with my axies. They get eaten REALLY fast though. I currently have 3 adults in my tank and the poor fishies disappear in under a week. They keep to themselves and don't gill nip (in my experience). Don't know anything about breeding them though. But they do come in tonnes of colours! I've had platys in the past too. They are pretty much the same as mollies.

Hey there,

I just started with fish in my axie tank myself, I made some mistakes and some good choices that I can share with you.

The mistake was when I put in a bulletfish, NEVER pls NEVER take a fish that is only a little bit carnivorous, the gills of my axies were trimmed in just a few hours that I was away, not a pretty sight.

There are various fish that can get very used to cold water even if they are tropical.
I work in a tropical fish speciality store so I will share this knowledge.

Some good suggestions of very friendly fish that can dapt to cold water are:
- Guppies (ofcourse) if you want leopard guppies are also fine, and always take many females and only 1 or 2 males.
- Citron tetras
- Fire neons
- Black neons
- Black tetras
- Pink tetras
- Chinese danio
- Zebra danio
- Coral platys (keep on eye on these ones)
- Nearly any botia (clownbotia)
- Algea eaters (I preffer small ones)

And I even keep 1 male and 1 female dwarf goerami, very beautifull fish and totally non-agressive

To keep the fish healthy don't cool the water to much, to co-excist with the axies controll the temperature each day so it's stays between 20 and 22 C.

Once in a while the small ones or dying fishes will get eaten by your axies, but thats nature i guess

More dont's are:

- panzer catfish
- knifefish
- parrotfish
- peacockfish

Or anything thats says cyclide in the name.

Monitor the fish at the start, and take out all the badasses that still decide to knibble on your axies gills.

I now have arround 20 fish, with only 3 casualties due to temperature I think.

Make sure you start with small and little numbers of fish, and then build it up so you can check if they all can find their spot in the aquarium, and theres enough room for everyone.

Hope this helps,
Cheers

White cloud minnows are cheap easy to breed, small no spines, many people have had success with these,

there living conditions are the same as axolotls so no temperature issues

I'm definitely willing to compromise on how pretty a guppy is if it will nibble on gills. My axie's gills are SO fluffy right now, and I'm so happy because it means my axie is happy too! I'm sure the shrimp won't nibble on gills... white cloud minnows seem fine. There are so many choices! Anything that is smaller I'm sure I won't need to sorry about as much.

Is there a risk of gil nipping with any kind of other animal in the tank though? If so I may rethink this, since I only thought goldfish or larger fish would be problems..

I also may get a few plants too. Mosses and whatnot.

I have also experimented with this the tank-mates I find the best are:

• 
  Bristle nose catfish, (non aggressive. Some of mine keep breeding (100+ so at a time) but I always raise them to be too big for an adult axie to even think of eating!)

• 
  Red cherry shrimp do well, (however make sure that you have a breeding colony in a small shrimp tank as they have to be warmer than axies prefer in order to breed and also otherwise would make a rather expensive snack- If you want them to survive I recommend heavily planting the tank)

As for Plants,

• java moss does well in my tank, as does java fern ( I got one pot last year, it has budded so much that i have run out of things to attach the mini ferns to, so now just float around on the surface)

• Anubis is also good - almost impossible to kill, great for sucking up nitrates and my axies love playing in the leaves

• I also have frogbit ( amazonian frogbit I think) to filter the light, it grows like crazy in my tanks and also is a very good biological filter - its kinda like mini lillypads

I have also been thinking of getting a breeding pairs of rosy barbs, but have not sorted out the logistics of it yet or the practicality

Hope that helps
Ollie

helobed said:

I have also experimented with this the tank-mates I find the best are:

• 
  Bristle nose catfish, (non aggressive. Some of mine keep breeding (100+ so at a time) but I always raise them to be too big for an adult axie to even think of eating!)

• 
  Red cherry shrimp do well, (however make sure that you have a breeding colony in a small shrimp tank as they have to be warmer than axies prefer in order to breed and also otherwise would make a rather expensive snack- If you want them to survive I recommend heavily planting the tank)

As for Plants,

• java moss does well in my tank, as does java fern ( I got one pot last year, it has budded so much that i have run out of things to attach the mini ferns to, so now just float around on the surface)

• Anubis is also good - almost impossible to kill, great for sucking up nitrates and my axies love playing in the leaves

• I also have frogbit ( amazonian frogbit I think) to filter the light, it grows like crazy in my tanks and also is a very good biological filter - its kinda like mini lillypads

I have also been thinking of getting a breeding pairs of rosy barbs, but have not sorted out the logistics of it yet or the practicality

Hope that helps
Ollie

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I heard catfish were a BIG no-no because they can suck an axolotls skin off..

that's pleco's, catfish are no no's because they have spines that get stuck in an axolotls throat. I honestly wouldn't stick anything in my tank other than guppies, cherry shrimp, or platies.