Picky eaters

Is your axolotl a picky eater?

I can't tell if my axolotl is a picky eater or just being a brat. I got him at about 2" (5cm) from a very nice LFS (they actually knew what they were doing). He ate black worms until he was about 4.5" (11.5cm) then I tried red wrigglers, which he hated at first. After a few feeding attempts and realizing all the worms I thought he ate he had spit out and hid under the rocks, I decided to try pellets.

I think he was too young, and I had to drop the pellets right on his mouth. Sometimes he would throw some up, but for the most part he ate them. Then I decided to cut him off, skipped his dinner and fed him a red wriggler the next morning and he ate it without much trouble! Since then he had been eating nothing but red wriggler.

Then yesterday he just flat out refused the red wrigglers. I tried many times until he started completely ignoring the worm wiggling around on his face, so back to the stinking pellets. These, of course, he eats with gusto. He ate about 5 hikari carnivore pellets for breakfast and dinner yesterday and breakfast today.

Today I had a nice surprise. 4 poops, 2 which were enormous! For a few days I hadn't seen any poop in the tank, and just thought that he was destroying it overnight while swimming and walking around. I'm wondering now if maybe he was a bit constipated.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? He seems healthy in every other way, behavior wise perhaps a bit more aggressive towards his food. We still had some black worms left and as my girlfriend lowered the rest of them in the feeding bowl he ended up biting her forearm lol. This morning he tried to swallow the tweezers trying to get the pellet.

My guy is not picky, but sometimes he won't eat for a while, then will come out with an entirely massive poop and gobble everything in sight. His dad used to consistently throw up his food (pellets, worms, feeder fish), but has gotten much better now that he's in a bigger tank and a more regular environment (aka not moving back and forth every semester of college). So it could be a little bit of stress, or just constipation like you said : )

I guess he could also just be acting like a weird axolotl lol.

He's been pooping regularly on the pellets. Fed him about 5 this morning and then tried to feed him a slightly smaller than usual worm but he just flat out refuses. Not sure why he went from loving them to hating them all of a sudden. I put the worm back in it's bin and once again he gobbled up like 5 or 6 pellets.

I'm a little annoyed cause I felt better when he was on the worms, but at least he's eating.

Mine go through phases of loving and hating worms. Two in particular. I think they get bored or cant be bothered fighting with them.

Thanks for all the input. That seems like what's most likely happening considering he ate them happily before this whole thing started. He obviously has an appetite since he's devouring the pellets and goes after them on the feeding tweezers very aggressively.

I decided to skip his morning meal and try another worm for dinner and see if I can get him back on them. I feel like I'm giving him junk food instead of something nutritious lol.

Mine simply refuse worms altogether. Tried several times, they eat if they're very hungry but basically would try and avoid them at any cost. I gave up and feed them frozen axolotl food plus pellets. If they get too picky - I give them a day with no food at all and all goes back to normal


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I gave my axolotl a day or a day and a half, can't remember right now. But when my girlfriend tried to feed him a red wriggler this morning he didn't even try at all. He'll normally bite it and automatically spit it out, this time he just turned and left the moment the worm touched his face. Ended up feeding him some pellets and figured I'd feed him some more of the pellets for a few days or a week and try the worms again.

Silly axolotls.

The best way to get an axolotl to eat worms is by not offering other food sources. The pellets probably smell better so as long as it's getting them it won't eat the worms. If you offer worms and it doesn't eat them the first day don't feed it anything else. Eventually they will eat it trust me.


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I got my juvie axie almost 2 months ago. He was 2.5 inches (6.5cm) when I got him and he's at 6.5 inches now (16.5cm). He had been eating red wrigglers for close to a month before he just decided he had enough of them and started refusing them. I've gone 2 days without feeding him anything else, but he still flat out refuses the worm. He'll sometimes bite it, but he'll spit it out instantly. Nothing has changed about the worms, it's even the same batch he started eating.

Water parameters are good, temperature is good and nothing has changed. Should I go longer without feeding him until he takes the worm? How many days is too long to go without food for a juvie axie?

It seems like he just really doesn't like the worms. After 2.5 to 3 days of no food he finally ate a worm a bit smaller than his body. After he looked like he was done sucking the worm down he poked the tweezers back in and he went after them so I figured he was a bit hungry and got a small worm. He seemed excited at first but the moment he noticed it was a worm he turned his back on it completely without even giving it a nibble.

My girlfriend wondered if he would eat a pellet and I figured I'd try it out and sure enough, he ate 2 pellets like he was starving. When I was feeding him the worms before I didn't feel like he was gaining enough weight, and I found it hard enough to feed him enough worms to get the same results as with the pellets.

Should I keep trying with the worms? Swap to better pellets and stick with that? I'm not really sure what to do I guess. I get good results from the hikari carnivore sinking pellets, but are they good enough as a staple diet?

Have you tried other worms? Mine hate red wrigglers. They will gladly take blanched trout worms and Canadian nightcrawlers. I gave up on the red wrigglers, because I feel bad feeding them something they clearly find unpalatable. I feed mostly worms and Hikari carnivore, with some salmon pellets and freshwater shrimp for variety.

Thanks for the advice on worms. I haven't tried any others except for black worms when he was small. I stuck with these since I read the whole thing of them having to get used to and I thought he did but now I'm sure he didn't after all of this. I'll stick with the pellets until I can get some more worms. I think Walmart near me sells Canadian nightcrawlers, not sure where to find trout worms.

I'm also starting a red cherry shrimp tank soon so he'll possibly get to snack on some as long as he can catch them lol.

One more question about worm feeding if anyone knows. When you measure the worm you're going to feed or cut it up, do you add up the length of the axie's tail or just the body without the tail? I've red to feed them a worm about the size of them, but not sure if I should include the axie's tail in that.

I fed my liltle monsters blood worms and brine shrimp till about 5 inches, with the occasional guppy fry. now they live in a 160 gallon tank with guppies platies and mollies and ghost shrimp I feed them worms almost daily whatever I dig up in my garden my sons golden prefers the soft newt pellets, my melonoid will eat anything even seen her eat the odd spider or moth that lands in their water my 2 wilds hunt untill there isn't a ghost shrimp to be found, they need variety it isn't abnormal for one of my lots to just stop eating for a day or two, I still give them the odd feeding of frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp its funny to watch em vacuum up bits off food youd think is too small but if I feed ya pizza every day you might learn to hate pizza so mix it up feed them a more rounded diet and your lot will start to feed with more gusto