Axolotl eyes, sensitive to blue light ?

Sluggy · Sep 20, 2011

I was wondering if anyone has any data on axolotl eyes and eyesight.
From what I know, their eyesight is quite poor. (Do they see in b&w or in color ?)

The other day I changed the neon bulb in my tank for a blue one, thinking it would make the tank look more aquatic, if you will.

Even though the blue light is quite dim, my axolotl Edgar FREAKED OUT ! He became downright frantic for a few moments and immediately hid away in his favorite flowerpot.
The blue light seemed to disturb or distress him greatly.

I promptly changed the bulb back to the regular white/plant growing bulb which is MUCH brighter to the human eye, and he's perfectly fine with that.

Any ideas anyone ?

Regards from Amsterdam.

ZoeT94 · Sep 20, 2011

Axolotl's eyesight is not very good at all, they are nocturnal animals, and anything sudden and bright will scare them. They are nocturnal and therefore hide away during the daytime, to come out and find food at night, which is why your axie swam away and hid.

Mine do the same, even if it is a clear bright light. Most people avoid using lighting on their tanks due to the axies habits...

I personally use a clip on spotlight, place all plants in a corner and shine the light in the corner so that they don't get freaked!

hope that helps a bit!

HappySkittles · Sep 20, 2011

I have blue lights on my tank...moonlight leds and a brighter light.
That's why when you see pics of my axies, if I don't touch them up, they look odd. They have always had this light and it has never affected them. It could just be he wasn't used to the change.

iSuzie · Sep 20, 2011

They don't have eyelids at all that's why when a bright light is shined on them without the chance to adjust to it they will freak out and try to hide.
Now i know this isn't a nice thought but just try to image someone holding your eyes open and shining a torch into them.. not very pleasant, so its not only that it scares them but I would image it would hurt them as well.

When you change a light its best to do it in the day light and not directly over your axolotls if possible.
What i do when i go into my spare room {where 2 juvi's are housed} I place a towel over there tank before turning on the light then slowly lift it so as they can adjust nicely as my spare room is very dark and usually I tend to need things from there at night.
{even when i try to avoid that lol}

Now with all that said, its best to have no light at all, but there are reasons for needed a light on your tank, eg. live plants. But if you don't have live plants then its unnecessary.
Keep in mind that if you do need or want lights over your tank, you should make sure there is a lot of dark hiding place where they can escape the light, plants hides rocks and other shelter like places.

As for the blue light vs white light, use the lowest light one. But dont forget ether cover your tank as you change it, or don't do the change directly over the tank if possible and at day time!

Good luck and don't feel bad that you scared him, we have all been there before accident happen!

Sluggy · Sep 22, 2011

Thanks for the input, folks.

I'm ell aware of axolotls being sensitive to light, I was wondering whether they are more sensitive to light in the blue spectrum than what appears to be white light to humans.

pent565 · Sep 22, 2011

I'm not sure, and its hard to be objective when your axie is used to a certain light. Daylight is high in the blue spectrum, so that could be a factor.

The only way to be really sure would be to do a series of objective experiments with a really long tank, and a series of lights of the same intensity, but different colors, and an axololt that isn't used to any particular light. Then observe which zone is most often inhabited. Repeat with different axies.

As this isn't really practical outside a lab, and its hard to be sure is they might be color blind or just indifferent.

Another thought, different light penetrates water to a different depth. Blue is the shallowest, red the deepest. Perhaps the blue light made your axie think it was too close to the surface in daytime?

Kribby · Sep 22, 2011

pent565 said:
Daylight is high in the blue spectrum, so that could be a factor.

Another thought, different light penetrates water to a different depth. Blue is the shallowest, red the deepest. Perhaps the blue light made your axie think it was too close to the surface in daytime?

Actually, the spectrum of a common daylight bulb is quite weak in the blue spectrum and has most of its intensity in the red spectrum. Our atmosphere filters out most of the blue light as well, which is what the daylights try to mimic. so you get a spectrum that looks vaguely like:

Water actually absorbed the red wavelengths of light quite easily, which is why it appears blue and why many marine keepers use blue lights. If they used daylight then their tanks would be overrun by opportunistic algae.

An actinic spectrum looks something like:

Where you can see the huge increase in intensity in the blue region.

The sudden change in intensity of certain spectrums could have upset him, expecially if their eyes are designed to absorbed different wavelengths of light preferentially for life underwater.

pent565 · Sep 22, 2011

I must be remembering something incorrectly. If you use a camera outdoors without adjusting the white balance, everything appears blue because the light is more in blue spectrum. That's what I was told, anyway. As far as water penetration, At a certain depth, I though the last color you could see was red, and all life you see through your sub window appears to be red, right before you hit absolute black.

nvm, just looked it up, wow, why do I remember that documentary that way? Funny how a few years play tricks on you.

Kribby · Sep 22, 2011

pent565 said:
I must be remembering something incorrectly. If you use a camera outdoors without adjusting the white balance, everything appears blue because the light is more in blue spectrum. That's what I was told, anyway. As far as water penetration, At a certain depth, I though the last color you could see was red, and all life you see through your sub window appears to be red, right before you hit absolute black.

nvm, just looked it up, wow, why do I remember that documentary that way? Funny how a few years play tricks on you.

It is easy to get mixed up when it comes to light. Between reflection, refraction, and absorption it is pretty easy to remember the wrong rules for each one. It's something I delt with pretty recently in my research so I was pretty fresh on the subject

Sluggy · Oct 2, 2011

I found some scientific results/data on albino axolotl eyes.

This subject matter goes way over my head but maybe it's of interest to anyone.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/137/1/589.full.pdf

Ddavies · Feb 3, 2018

I know this thread is ancient but this may be of some help others. I just got some clamp on lights that have white/blue or just blue led. I have 3 axies in the tank two of which are gfp, none of them like the new lights they are too bright. The old ones were just white led. Anyway, interesting thing was the blue totally freaked out the two gfp ones as described above (and made them glow, I'd freak out too) but the nongfp could care less and goes about business as usual. Just my thoughts, I was actually looking into bluevswhitevsred for plants and this thread came up on Google.

rhotle · Feb 3, 2018

How dim or intense is it? I have 2 very small slip on LED lamps, they're full spectrum and sit pretty high above the water. They're almost more like ambient room lighting than tank specific lighting, but my axolotls don't really react to them. When I turn the overhead light on in the morning they get excited because they know to expect food :rofl:

AlexNanoTanks · Apr 15, 2018

I read on another thread that blue light hurts axolotl's eyes, but that doesn't meme any sense because of GFP being man made. Lol

tinasvfx · Apr 15, 2018

I was thinking of getting a dimmer to keep light on but less intense?

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