Hello & quick question about Axies enjoying company

Hi, have been lurking here often enough and learning how to look after our new pets, and finally gotten round to posting. We've recently set up a 4ft axie tank and have 2 albino axis and 2 young golden ones. We started off with the just the one albino (well I think its albino anyway - its white, with large pink gills, black eyes and grey facial freckles.....) and I thought he might like some company. I was lucky enough to get a 'free to good home' axie which is a paler white, pale pink eyes and no freckles. Its the largest axie I've ever seen and was living in a small tank. He seems pretty happy now.
I then couldn't resist getting two young golden ones. Don't worry, theyre large enough not to fit in the bigger ones' mouths lol.
Well my question is this - from reading most information, apparently axolotls are not fussed on having company?? I must say the two golden juvies do their own thing and don't even seem aware of each other. However - its a different story with these albino guys. When I first added the much larger 'monster' into the tank, my original albino, who was in there by himself, went nuts ("what's THAT in my tank") and the new one swam frantically around crashing into the walls and all hell broke loose. Ooops, though I, maybe not such a good idea after all. Anyway, not long afterwards I checked up on them and they were hugging (yes, hugging) underneath the same cave. I am not joking, they had their arms (OK I mean front legs) over each other and I swear they both had huge grins on their faces. Ever since then (this is a couple of weeks back now) they are always together under their favourite rock - and its not like they have to share - I have many caves set up to choose from. So I firmly believe that they sure do enjoy each other's company. Is this unusual? They are both interested in people too and will swim up for their food. The juvies will not but maybe this will change as they get older.
Sorry for the long post!

Hi and welcome.

It sounds like your "original albino" is not an albino but a leucistic....albinos have no colour pigmentation in their eyes, they are very pale to white in colour where as leucistic will have black eyes.

My pair went loopy when first introduced but within hours were happily sharing a hide together. The female Wild Type was recently not well and I had to fridge her for a week....when I put her back in with her pal,my male leucistic, she sat on his head for hours as if to say "I'm not leaving again". They will look for each other too and share the same corner of the tank wherever possible even though it's a 3 ft, 125 litre (33 gallon) tank and they are only 7 inch juvies.

Love watching them together. Enjoy yours and take 100% advantage of the invaluable advice given on this forum. :happy:

Ha, that's funny - sitting on the other axi's head! Well now I know he's a leucistic then. Are the golden ones just called golden or golden albino's?
They are very cute and we do love watching them.

My little guys ignore me 100%...but they seem to have bonded with each other. They are almost always together in the tank--crammed all in the same space. My oldest was alone for the longest time...and he was pretty lethargic. When I put the two younger ones with him, he really changed. He's more active and very interactive with my leucistic, in particular. Maybe I'm projecting and seeing what I want to see, but I'm convinced they are social creatures.

Off subject--any ideas about why my guys totally ignore me? They don't respond to me or go to the top of the water for me to feed them. Maybe they aren't that hungry? Who knows....sorry for the tangent!

My two completely ignore each other. But they do respond to me now. I used to throw in a couple of worms when I went into the fish room to feed everybody and do water changes. Now Einstein (wild type) swims to the top as soon as I come into the room. Blip (leucistic - suspected white melanistic) stays close to the bottom but comes out of hiding and stretches up in anticipation.

Because every time they hear the garage door open, a worm falls into the tank!



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2