Question: I think I know what to feed them - now HOW do I feed them?

I just got two new axies! Yay! And when I say "just got" I mean out of the bag, into the tank about 2 hours ago.

Right now, I've just got pellets to feed them (shipped with them) - I'm intrigued by the idea of earthworms, but I don't know where to get them. Petsmart is pretty much the only pet store option, and I live in a big apartment complex, so I don't think I'd trust anything that came out of the ground around here.

So, my question (possibly a silly one, but still) HOW do you feed them? I've been dropping pellets in the water, but the one is hiding, and the other ignores them (even when I drop them literally on top of him). I've tried using tweezers to wiggle them, but it just smushes the pellets. They've apparently been eating this stuff all along, so I don't think it's that they don't like pellets. Do I just drop some in and hope they eat them eventually? They're pretty skinny right now, and I just don't want them to start eating each other :-/

I haven't cycled yet, so I have to daily water changes for a while any way - maybe I should try feeding them then, when I've got them in their separate little tupperware things?

(side note: I got a bacteria supplement that's supposed to make the cycling go faster, but then I read somewhere, I forget where, that those are bad and can make cycling take longer? So I'm thinking about returning it. Any opinions?)

Don't drop some in and hope they eat it. It'll just foul your water.

Give them a couple of days to settle in. They just went through a big change! After a day or two, try dropping a pellet right in front of their face.

Return the bottled bacteria. It's useless. There are no live bacteria in the bottle after being sealed up and left on a shelf for weeks.

What Kaysie said.
One of my axies didn't eat for a week when I first got her, poor thing. But now she is the piggiest of them all and eats anything and everything I put in front of her.

As for the earthworms - I live in an apartment and keep the worms in my fridge in the plastic container they come in. When it's feeding time I rummage through the container and pull out the worms and drop them into a bowl of water to rinse them off, then wiggle them in front of my axies faces who never seem to be able to get enough.

While the pellets have everything they need nutritionally, it's always fun and cute to see an axie with a worm wiggling half in and half out it's mouth

Ditto and ditto to those above! As to where to get reliable earthworms, I just go to my local whatever-store (usually Wal-mart) and get the worms they have for fishing bait. I started mine off with trout worms, because they're a bit smaller than nightcrawlers, but if/once he gets big enough, nightcrawlers could do too. I'll second the worm feeding method above- you always want to rinse them, then give them to your axi. It is quite amusing watching them slurp them up...

I handfeed one of my axies the pellets (reptomin), he comes to the surface and grab them (I have to move them and sometimes put them right in front of his mouth) or he doesn't find them... or at least it takes so long that they foul the water, so I just hand feed them...

Hand feed worms from wal-mart
I get the trout worms, rinse them off, and dangle the worm in front of the axie...well they actually speed out from hiding places and attack my hand because they know it means food haha

Yeahhh you need to invest in some kind of dropper, axolotls can't see very well at all. Mine just doesn't even eat unless the food is right over his head. Also, you can just feed them cubes of frozen bloodworms if you want some variety in their diet. But earthworms are good too, from a pesticide free garden or just from the bait shop. You just need to make sure they can see it!

I Attached a 1

Thanks for the advice! Turns out Petsmart kept some earthworms in a fridge in a back room - I just had to ask I eventually managed to get them to eat a few pellets, but they LOVED the worms, so I think that's the way to go! As an aside, I have to say death by carnivore is probably the worst way to go. Never in my life have I felt sorry for a worm before :-(

you should think about starting a small worm bin.
It is great fun, you could feed the worms on a healthy diet (--> nutricious worms) and you would get some worm humus for your garden :happy: Its a win - win - win situation.


I startet with pellets (took a detour over cockroaches) and ended with a nice worm bin - never looked back...