Feeder Fish...Never again.

I recently purchased "10 feeder fish" from the local store. I wanted to give my axo's some variety in food. Just in case, I kept the feeder fish in my smaller "carry tank". The store dropped in a couple extra, guess they knew some would die. Within 1 hour of driving home, and emptying them into a new tank, one died. I figured I'd allow them some time to adjust to their new tank before feeding them. Waited over night (cleaned water out 100% change, fed them shrimp pellets). By the next day, only 4 were healthy, 3 were very sickly looking (upside down swimming, etc) and the rest were dead. Threw out the dead ones, really curious now.. Kept them for TWO more days in the small tank, with 100% water changes daily (didnt shock them with water, no chlorine in hawaii water system). By the 3rd day, all of them were dead.

Never again, from that pet store.

Went home, grabbed 10-20 guppies. Kept them the same way, all of them lived in the same (cleaned out) tank. After closer examination of the dead feeder fish, it appears they all had ick too.. Glad I did NOT feed them to my axos.

Just a heads up to anyone looking at feeding their axolotls fish.. I'm gonna go buy some red cherry shrimp - 50 for $100! Give my axolotls a few every week

Thats why i breed my own guppies and shrimps for my axys
It will take some time first but then youve got something

freya said:

Thats why i breed my own guppies and shrimps for my axys
It will take some time first but then youve got something

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definitely from now on they will all be ones I bred. I have a lot of guppies at home but didnt want to feed them..sort of felt bad feeding them my own previous pets..not anymore though :lol: I did feel bad for this one guppy, he survived for about 4 days before he finally disappeared into one of my axies bellies. I'm looking into picking up 50 or so red shrimp for ~$100 and starting a breeding colony!

It's a general rule to quarantine ANYTHING you are going to add to your Axolotl's tank for at least 30 days. This typically includes plants, fish, invertebrates, or other axolotls. You can breed red cherry shrimp fairly easily...there are plenty of guides online.

Shizeric said:

It's a general rule to quarantine ANYTHING you are going to add to your Axolotl's tank for at least 30 days. This typically includes plants, fish, invertebrates, or other axolotls. You can breed red cherry shrimp fairly easily...there are plenty of guides online.

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Ah, good information. I must admit I didn't do that with my own guppies - quarantined it for maybe a week. My plants, anacharis (sp?) and Java Moss was washed throughly by hand and then tossed in. I did get some small snails because of it - been trying to pick them out one at a time to get rid of them.

ikeyballz said:

h.. I'm gonna go buy some red cherry shrimp - 50 for $100! Give my axolotls a few every week

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I breed RCS for a treat for my axies.

A few a week will go nowhere, they'd eat a few an hour if they could.

Good thing is they find em difficult to catch so gives em lots of entertainment.

i breed guppies for pixie and at first i tried just plopping a fry in and then waited for pix to catch him. didn't happen. she didn't even try. pixie isn't really a hunter so it means if she wants a guppy i have to catch one myself and literally put it right in front of her little face. its gotten to the point were there's not a whole lot of advantages to feeding the guppies, cus pix enjoys worms more and i dont have much of a stomach for it. so i just keep my own colony and any fry i get i either give away or sell to pet stores for display tanks. i hear that red cherry shrimp are great for axies but there pretty expensive in all the pet stores here. 50 here would cost nearly $200 and there pretty hard to find as well so id have to order them. the price of alternative food around here makes me happy pix is a really picky eater

You can get RCS really cheap from websites like aquabid...you can often find them for less than a dollar a pop.

not sure if i read that right...but wouldn't a 100% water change kill any fish?

Not if the water being used is of the same temperature and is clean of any toxins.

what about ph shock? chlorine? GH/KH? minerals/metal in the water? stress?

aeri said:

what about ph shock? chlorine? GH/KH? minerals/metal in the water? stress?

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I live in hawaii, no chlorine in the water, very VERY soft water. I have two smaller tanks and I transfered the feeders between the tanks.