Illness/Sickness: Stunted growth in a juvie or nothing to freak out about?

Hey guys,

Newbie axolotl owner here. I was hoping I wouldn't have to come to you guys with a problem so soon, but here I am!

I got two juvenile axolotls about two weeks ago, ~2 months old and 3 inches in length on the nose. So far they've both been eating/pooping/acting alike, but I've noticed one is slightly smaller than the other at this point. I wasn't expecting them to grow this quickly, and if I just had one and not the other I probably wouldn't even think anything of it, but after two weeks it's getting pretty hard to deny that one is growing like a champ and has especially fluffy, healthy looking gills and the other...still pretty much looks like the day he got here. The bigger one has grown over half an inch since he's arrived, but the other is definitely slower to develop.

Now, I wasn't super concerned until this morning when I fed them. The smaller one vomited up not only his breakfast this morning, but it looks like everything he ate yesterday too. Is this indicative of a blockage? Am I maybe just overfeeding them and this is his way of telling me?

Some specs: They are from the same breeder and same clutch of eggs and are around 10 weeks old right now. They are currently living in plastic bins with no substrate because my tank is still cycling. I do 100% water changes daily with cool dechlorinated tap water (sometimes twice daily if they make an especially big mess because I'm paranoid about ammonia). They get live blackworms twice daily and I remove whatever they don't eat after about 15 minutes.

Here they are the day I got them:


And these were taken this morning. It's kind of hard to get them next to each other, but you can get an idea of the size difference:



Am I just crazy or should I be worried?

There is definately a size difference, but I wouldn't be too worried. I had a little axie who developed a bit of a floating issue, and fell behind his siblings by an inch or 2 at 6 months. After some TLC and plenty of worms she grew out of the floating thing and has caught up and even overtaken her siblings (now at 9 months). Your axie isn't 'stunted' it's just a little behind the other one.

Some axies just have eyes bigger than their bellies, if they stuff themselves they can regurgitate undigested food.

You can leave blackworms in the tub - they don't foul the water like brineshrimp or pellets. Chances are that the bigger one gets there first, eats what it wants, and the little one doesn't get a full feed before you remove the worms.

Thanks for the response! It's so hard being new to something like this; you can research your heart out, but it's still hard to know what's "normal" and what's not without experience.

And I will take your advice about the worms!

Update: the little guy died yesterday.

He developed a habit of floating, and i wasn't too worried because he would still come down to eat, but then he started vomiting up everything he ate. I separated him from his brother to see if being alone would let him get to the worms at his own pace. Over the past coiple of days he stopped eating completely and looked pale. Yesterday I came home from work and he was gone.

My only guess is maybe he had an air bubble he couldn't pass. I was afraid to fridge him since he already wasn't eating, but maybe it would have helped?

Meanwhile the other one is truckin' along and eating/growing/pooping like a champ, so I hope it wasn't something I did. Still pretty bummed.

I'm so sorry.