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Question: Weight Gain in Waterdog?

RoreyRoreyRorey

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For the past few weeks I have been recovering from an ailment so my dad has been watching my waterdog Toothless. Toothless has gained an enourmous amount of weight in just 2-3 weeks, should I be concerned at all? Or is my dad just over feeding?
 

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DSaxolotl

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Id say you were under feeding tbh. First pic looks too skinny for a healthy adult, while second looks much much better. So your dad did good job!
 

DSaxolotl

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Well In that case you should continue same trend your father did :p

Btw what are you getting it?
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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Well In that case you should continue same trend your father did :p

Btw what are you getting it?

Unfortunately his diet consists mostly of frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp! I’ve tried feeding him all sorts of live worms like tubifex, red wigglers, and night crawlers, but he wouldn’t eat them! Just like my adult tiger salamander, he seems afraid of the worms and keeps as far away as possible.
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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For the past few weeks I have been recovering from an ailment so my dad has been watching my waterdog Toothless. Toothless has gained an enourmous amount of weight in just 2-3 weeks, should I be concerned at all? Or is my dad just over feeding?

Just wanted to give an update on Toothless! He is growing very fast! When we got him a month ago, he was only about 5 inches and was incredibly skinny! But now he is 10 inches, pushing 11! He seems to be very happy in his home even if it may be a little small (7.5 gallon I believe). The other day I went back to the aquarium store where I got I Toothless and I was shocked! They still had the other waterdogs from the same batch of eggs as Toothless, I even asked the store owner to be sure. What shocked me was that they had barely grown! Even though they appeared well fed, they had only grown an inch or two at max, and two of them had already transitioned to their terrestrial stage. I just thought it was so interesting how much environment has affected the development of Toothless as opposed to his siblings!
 

DSaxolotl

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11 inches and 7.5 gallons you are about to have a bad time with that man, look up into bigger tanks. Dollar per gallon sales or alike can easy get like 29 for peanuts.
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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11 inches and 7.5 gallons you are about to have a bad time with that man, look up into bigger tanks. Dollar per gallon sales or alike can easy get like 29 for peanuts.

Yeah... my problem with that is when I went to buy a new tank, the aquarium people discouraged me from getting one because they said Toothless would become terrestrial soon and I would have two empty tanks
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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11 inches and 7.5 gallons you are about to have a bad time with that man, look up into bigger tanks. Dollar per gallon sales or alike can easy get like 29 for peanuts.

In another recent thread, you mentioned that black toe tips means sexual maturity? Is that definite factor for determining it? I’m not sure how long he’s had them but Toothless has black toe tips. If he is sexually mature, is there a chance he will still become terrestrial? Because if he is going to be a neotenic individual I can get him a much larger tank and set up his current tank for my African Clawed frog. I was planning on moving the ACF to Toothless’s tank when he morphed because the AFC outgrew the 5 gallon tank a lot faster than my local pet store told me he would(I know it’s a he because he always starts calling at me when I come into the room, even got a nice video of it). But if Toothless isn’t going to change, I will need to invest in a much bigger tank so that he can hopefully grow huge like neotenic tiger salamanders can do!
 

DSaxolotl

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Axolotls usually stay into their larval form all their life , hence they are fully aquatic. However very seldom there are some that will metamorphosis to their terrestrial form but from what I have read they do not live very long once they get there.

More you can read here http://www.axolotl.org/index.htm about that and about sexual maturity here http://www.axolotl.org/biology.htm.

I personally would not even consider breeding them unless they have at least year and half or two on them.

If you have true axolotl ambystoma mexicanum then it should remain aquatic for its whole life.

You live in USA, petco or other chain stores often have dollar per gallon sale , you can get 29G for 29$, or just Craigslist some tanks often some there for free pickup.
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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Axolotls usually stay into their larval form all their life , hence they are fully aquatic. However very seldom there are some that will metamorphosis to their terrestrial form but from what I have read they do not live very long once they get there.

More you can read here http://www.axolotl.org/index.htm about that and about sexual maturity here http://www.axolotl.org/biology.htm.

I personally would not even consider breeding them unless they have at least year and half or two on them.

If you have true axolotl ambystoma mexicanum then it should remain aquatic for its whole life.

You live in USA, petco or other chain stores often have dollar per gallon sale , you can get 29G for 29$, or just Craigslist some tanks often some there for free pickup.

Thank you! I'll check that out. But the issue is that Toothless is a tiger salamander, not an axolotl, which means he could stay aquatic like an axolotl, or become terrestrial.
 

DSaxolotl

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Oh i saw this topic under axolotl forum and assumed its axie lol.

Well in that case pretty sure he will morph at some point unless you are very lucky not to? disregard my links they are for axies.

Do not know much about tiger s. :)
 

RoreyRoreyRorey

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Metamorphosis!!

After just a few days, the metamorphosis is well underway! The caudal fun is already gone, gills are starting to shrink, and head and legs are starting to plump up!
 

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