Question: Are we doing this right?

Hi all,

Our axolotl died last night, and before we get another, we want to make sure we weren't doing anything egregious with our set up. We have a friend who wants to give us her axolotls in about a week -- 2 adults living in a 10 gal aquarium being fed turtle pellets...yikes! So we want to make sure we're prepared and make sure we can avoid a repeat of last night.

We have a 50 gallon breeder tank with Florabase substrate, live plants, and terra-cotta pots for hiding. We have a canister filter that is big enough to handle our tank and then some. We feed them earthworms as long as the ground isn't frozen, and then we supplement with feeder fish during the winter. We do water changes about once a month, and major filter cleaning about twice a year. Every time we have done water changes and/or filter cleaning, nothing seems excessively dirty. We have two sides of the tank covered to prevent direct sunlight hitting the tank, and we have almost no visible algae growth on the sides (evidence of low light).

Last summer, we had about 2 weeks of 85-100 degree days, and we did a rotation of ice packs in the tank to keep the water cool. The axolotls did fine, and continued feeding throughout this time. Yesterday and today are in the mid-90s here, and we added some ice packs to the tank last night when we noticed the water approaching 75F. Our axolotl had also refused food yesterday, but she ate a bunch of worms on Sunday. We are sort of assuming the heat had something to do with her death last night, but we're not sure. The ice packs only lowered the tank temp by 1-2 degrees, so I don't think it was a drastic temperature fluctuation either.

Anyway, we are thinking about getting a chiller before we get any more axolotls, just for peace of mind. That being said, we live in Maine and hot hot days are few and far between. So, my questions are as follows:

1. Is there anything that you can see from the above description that we're doing wrong?
2. Can we do something better or additional that would provide a better overall housing setup?
3. Can anyone recommend a chiller that we would probably only use during summer months?

Sorry this is so long, we just want to do right by our pets.
Thanks in advance!
Jessie

Jessie, please take a look at the articles here Caudata Culture Articles for further information on tank cycling, filters, water quality, cooling methods, foods, set-ups, etc.

Also, if you haven't found this site Axolotls: The Fascinating Mexican Axolotl and the Tiger Salamander yet, you'll want to look through it - it is 'all things axolotl'.

Thanks, I have read all those pages before, I just wanted to make sure that we weren't doing something that might have caused the sudden death of our axolotl. We just want to avoid this next time, if possible.

The only thing I can see there that I would increase is the water changes, 20-30% every week rather than monthly.

well every week every other week once a month once a year, the time that water needs to be changed is not determinate by how long its been in there but by how the levels of ammonia and nitrates are doing.
so i would recommend getting a test kit, and maybe consider a chiller

Thanks everyone -- we have a test kit. The chiller is on our "to get" list.