Wont eat at all!!

Hi I have purchased two juvenile axies, they are about 2 inches, and they were eating fine but now they wont eat anything! they have not eaten for a week now... sliming down! The person I bought them from said they tweezer fed them, I had them feeding on the bottom with live black worms and frozen blood worms. But now they have stopped eating! they look fine though, their gills are back and relaxed fresh water change daily, temp at 65-70. I tried giving them pellets as well but nothings working. had them for two weeks now, first week they ate fine but now they just stopped are they okay?

How often are you checking the water parameters & doing water changes.

Appetite can be affected when the water quality is bad.

If you haven't been testing the water then you need to start - get a master test kit & start checking the levels of
Ammonia / Nitrite / Nitrate / Ph regularly!

(there are some on the forums who hate seeing others harp on about the importance of testing water - fine for them because they obviously learned the importance of clean healthy water early on - for those new to aquariums a test kit is an invaluable asset to your axolotls health)

If you doubt the water in their tank - remove them immediately before their conditions worsen & permanently affect their growth. Put them into a large tub & change the water 100% daily - use dechlorinated (measure this very accurately!) water & scrub out the tub every second day. Try introducing live blackworms to the lotl in the clean water - hopefully the appetite will return soon.

Now the axolotls are safe you can concentrate on making sure the tank water is healthy.. Read up on cycling your tank - there's plenty of posts on here about it

Please keep us updated on the condition




<3 >o_o< <3

This might sound stupid, but have you tried dropping the food on their heads to stimulate them? My axolotl won't eat pellets but occasionally he will eat one if I drop it onto his face lol.

I would say watch your temp as well. 70 is getting too warm and may be stressing them out. I try very hard not to have my water get above 66 or so, but like it between 60-64.

Are they on a substrate they could have swallowed like sand? That could cause major problems.

And yes, I fed my babies thawed frozen bloodworms using tweezers. Worked very well.

Good luck!

Thank you all for the replies. So here are your answers:

So I have not put them in a tank yet I was going to wait till they are a bit bigger since their tank is a 33 gal.

I have them in a long tub, water is about 3/4 inch in depth, I am doing 100% water change with dechlorinated water.

Since I have had them they were feeding on live black worms but the last week they just stopped eating... I tried feeding them frozen blood worms but they wont eat, I tried pellets and they ignore that as well...

The room temp is at 70 which the water should be cooler so I figured that was not the problem, at night we set our ac on so the room they are in is even colder!!
What should I do??!!

When I hatched my babies, there was a pretty big temp variation between night and day.

When I asked about it, I was told by numerous people that too big of a temp shift on a consistent basis is very stressful for axies, so if you have a 70 degree room temp in the day (I'd check with a thermometer to see what your water is actually at. My guess is it will be very close to/at 70 degrees) and then are dropping it drastically with AC at night, you could be seriously stressing them out, hence the not eating.

So even if they show no signs of stress they can be stressed?
Their gills are back and relaxed, tales straight as can be...

I'll hook up the temperature gauge and monitor it today, but let's say it's consistent at mid 60 what else can be the problem? What's a drastic change would you say? five degrees?ten?

What time of day do you feed them? My axie wont eat unless it is night time, maybe if you start them into a routine they might start responding?

i feed them every night... time varies but only difference is about 2 hours apart either 8pm or 10pm...
temp right now is at 63! is that too low? this is during daytime...63-66 during the day at night my guess is at 60-65 I will monitor it tonight.

I put a fan on it because I thought it would help maintain the temp. my other tank in the same room is at 68 and the lotls are at 63/64 at the moment.

If they're 2 inches long, you can have them in deeper water. I imagine your water quality is poor given how shallow your setup is. Do you scrub off the biofilm when you do water changes?

Mid 60's is definitely not too low.

how high should i raise the water? I mean they can fully sumerge the water is about 4 times their height. and when i do the change yes i do scrub the bio film off about every other day! how long can they stay without food?

I remember reading that the water should be at least as deep as the axie is long - so a 2" axies needs water at least 2" deep.
A week is a long time for a small axie to go without food - maybe try them with some daphnia or brineshrimp in their tubs and let them eat if they're interested.

I thought brine shrimp only lived in saltwater? wont they die in fresh water in a short period.


But, I tried everything and have done everything I can for these little guys, theyre hanging in there but doubt theyll stay alive for much longer, their water is fresh daily and stays consistant at 62-64 degrees all day and night, tried feeding everything from live worms frozen and pellets water is four inches which is fine for them cause they are only 2 in max... Im unsure why they just stopped feeding all of a sudden

Brine shrimp will swim around for at least a couple hours in fresh water. Mine usually lasted between 6 and 12 hours.

Do you have any hides?