About to be an axolotl owner

Time for a Dude update. With photos! :happy:

First of all, the tank as it is now with the sand in - he seems to like the sand a lot and was very active last night, exploring his new bridge (it had a few bits that were sharper than I was happy about so I have filed them down) and the new food bowl! The water looks slightly murky as it has a mug of black tea added.

I fridged him while setting up the tank but alas it has done nothing for his constipation. Last night I got him to eat a tiny live worm and half of another pretty small one. Goldfish flakes were spat out immediately :/ At the aquarium shop I bought a pack of locally made "Axolotl Tucker" which contains blood worms and shrimp amongst other things. There was a cube of that in his bowl during the faceplant photo - I think the smell was attractive to him but he still spat most of it out and made a huge mess. I did get him to eat a wee bit of it straight from the turkey baster. He seems very hungry as he was following my hand around and kept nipping at that, the baster and the feeding tongs...it just seems like he wants to be hand fed and after living on fish flakes perhaps he is struggling with the texture and/or size of other foods. I'm debating whether to try some bloodworms tonight or just leave him be...

as a side note, at the aquarium shop they had 3 juveniles, including the SWEETEST little freckleface with big fluffy gills. I SO want him/her - but at the half the size of the Dude it wouldn't be good to put them in together and I don't have the space or $ to set up a 2nd tank at the moment You'd think a specialist shop like that would know better than to be keeping them on small pebbles though.

The tank looks great, I really hope Dude takes a large dump for you tonight

I don't think you should go back to that pet shop anymore... Before you know it, you'll have axolotls in every room!

I've never wanted to see poo this much in my life!
I really can't think of getting another one until we move house in November, but ohmygosh what a CUTIE and I'd already decided I really want a freckleface.... the bank account has been cleaned out though from buying stuff for The Dude. But I do get paid again this week...

Good thing I don't live near by... I may steal freckle face from under your nose... :bowl:

Thrilled to report that I came home after an evening out to find a big poo. AND I got him to eat a few of the JBL LotlXL pellets. I think the sand substrate is making a big difference for him, he seems to like sticking his nose in and rooting around for food. So YAY!

YAY!
"Sunday is Poo-Day" roud: :lol:

You go Dude!!

Dude update time!
Yesterday I got him to eat a pellet from my fingers for the first time
Some days he will eat earthworms and some days he won't, but is starting to get his head around the concept of a glass jar with bloodworms in it - I got him to eat most of a cube yesterday and he will now sometimes eat pellets as well. I think he's put on a little weight as I've been offering food most days.

His toe that lost the claw is still swollen; I can see a wee dark bit at the end but I don't know if that is rot or a new claw growing so I will keep an eye on it.

I had hoped that using most of the original tank water when I got him would settle the chemistry down pretty quick but I'm really starting to think now that it's still cycling as I haven't gotten nitrates or ammonia down to zero yet. I'm testing the water every couple of days at present and then doing a partial water change, so while it is not ideal nothing is getting high enough to cause any stress or burns or anything.

I'm a touch worried about my little worm farm as there is a lot of red spider mites and some of the worms are lethargic. I'm making sure to turn over the soil regularly and not overfeed but I don't know if the mites are a cause for concern?

Some days the Dude is grumpy and hides away and others he seems quite interested...at any rate he seems to really like the new bridge ornament and he hangs out under it a lot so he can see out while still feeling safe. He's never going to be a beautiful axie and I would dearly love to have a pretty freckled one with fluffy gills as well...but love him dearly, even if people tell me he looks like a diseased ***** with legs!

Time for a long overdue Dude update!

I haven't been around because we've spent a couple of months renovating the place we bought, moving in and cleaning up the old place..such fun. I didn't want to move The Dude until we were all set up so he got left in the old place by himself for about a week with me stopping in to feed him a couple of times. I don't know whether he got frightened or lonely or something but when we went to collect him he had a gash on his right front leg, which is the same one that one has 1 or 2 toes that have been damaged and bend in a strange direction. It was a shame to put him under the stress of moving...but I got his tank set up and put a strong tea infusion into the water and it looks like the leg is healing ok and the swelling has gone down a lot. Phew!

One thing about our new place is that it is much warmer, and combined with a record-breaking warm spring it has been hard to keep his tank at ideal temperatures. So far I've been putting a 1.5l ice bottle in before I go to work each day and that has kept the tank at 20C or below, but I'm a bit worried about the summer. We are keeping the tank in the hallway which is not a great location for hanging out with him, but the coolest spot short of putting him in the basement, and I think he'd get lonely down there! :/

For several weeks now he has refused to eat anything except lotl pellets - hardly ideal, but I figure it's still better than the fish flakes he used to eat! I'm hoping that soon he'll get bored with them and be ready to try worms again (I"m keeping the little worm farm going.) In the meantime I try to rearrange things in his tank regularly for a bit of stimulation for him. Any time I move his moss ball out into the open he will wait till the middle of the night and then move it into the end of his sleeping hide, I think it is some kind of axie equivalent of a sleep mask for him - he's using it to help block out light during the day!

At any rate, he is doing ok at the moment and the tank chemistry is good. I'd still really like to get another axie...but for now I can't quite see where I could fit one! :/

I'm getting an axie in 2 days and have been told that he can have an occasional piece of chicken of bacon instead of his bloodworms. The problem is no one told me how much meat to feed him? Do any of you guys know?


I'm new to the axolotl scene.

Do not feed your axolotl chicken and bacon. Have you ever seen a wild axolotl hunting down a hen or a pig?

Mammalian meat might seem appropriate in terms of protein/fat ratio, but it's hard for axies to digest.

Feed you axie earthworms. If you don't have earthworms, other worms will suffice - bloodworms, whiteworms, blackworms, waxworms. An occasional cricket, guppy, mealworm or roach is also acceptable. In an emergency small pieces of raw unsalted fish or prawn will do, but only if nothing else is available.

Thanks auntiejude, do you have to do anything to an earthworms before you give it to them?


I'm new to the axolotl scene.

Time for another Dude update! Last time I posted we had just moved house and he had a cut leg.
I decided that the bridge ornament I had in there was probably the culprit (even though I sanded down the edges) so I took that out and decided to shift to live plants and a more natural-looking tank.

I bought a BIG piece of driftwood with useful protrusions that support it. It takes up about 1/3 of the tank but makes a really nice big hide for him. There's a main "entrance" and a smaller gap that he can just get through and where he likes to just poke his head out and observe everything. As for live plants in addition to the existing moss ball I got a Twisted Valisneria, a java fern that was already fixed onto a piece of driftwood, some clumps of Java moss and one other...anubias I think.
All of the plants seem to be doing fine, the Val and anubias have both put out roots and I think the val. may eventually root properly (though I don't have much substrate, just enough sand to give the Dude some grip, maybe 1/4 inch. The anubias seems to be doing ok floating which is just as well because every time I try to secure it he digs it up & moves it around!

I had expected the live plants to result in some pond snails, but not so far. I had freshwater limpets for a few weeks but they're gone now. After them something else appeared.... Some kind of midge maybe? The larvae looked exactly like bloodworms, only smaller. They seemed to hatch from the water into some white winged thing about the size of a sandfly, and then all drown because they couldn't get out of the (lidded) tank. However they seem to have subsided now as well. Currently I have a little brown algae due to summer warmth and light so I'm scraping the glass every couple of weeks to keep it in check.

I was worried how the Dude would go over the summer. Only once did the tank get to the 24C mark, I kept 2 ice bottles in the freezer to put in the tank when needed and that kept the temps reasonable and stopped him getting distressed.

I'm pleased to report that after nothing but pellets for many weeks the Dude decided to start eating frozen bloodworms and now he loves them! I feed him a cube every 2nd day inside a glass jar. He seems to enjoy munching a few mouthfuls and then spreading the rest around the tank to "hunt". The whole process takes him hours which isn't ideal for water quality, but I'm keeping an eye on that...he also gets a couple of pellets from time to time. He looks SO much better and healthier than when I got him. I'll post some photos of the current tank set up next time I'm on an actual computer.

The only bummer is that it just doesn't seem like I'll be able to persuade the other half to let me put a bigger tank in the lounge....so Dude may be destined to remain a bachelor. I am looking into fitting a small tank into my studio so that I can have a betta though. I never thought I would be this interested in pets that can't be cuddled!