Frozen Blood Worm

Hey, my axolotl experience has finally begun, I have a cute pair of widl types, one lighter and one dark- for the time being at least, I gather they change colour! My problem is feeding them though, yesterday I dropped a quarter of a cube of frozen blood worms to each and they had no difficulty finding them, but today, they're having a little more trouble. Obviously, as the cubes go into the water, they thaw and the tank is littered with them, so its quite hard to feed each axolotl their food. I just placed the cubes at the bottom of the tank, wiggled my fingers about to try and attract their attention and left them to their own devices. What do you do when feeding them the bloodworm? Also, I ordered some axolotl pellets, which are supposed to be a lot cleaner to the tank, but I gather that a live food source is good. What would you recomend?

Cheers

Joe

Wen i feed my axies blood worms i do the same thing as you do, if its a bit messy why not try a feeding jar.
Wat are your axies staple? Pelets should not be a staple, the best thing for axies to eat is earth worms.
How big are your axies?
If you have any more questions feel free to ask,
Sam:happy:

Earthworms are infinitely tidier, swap to those as soon as your little monkeys are big enough!

When I fed mine bloodworm, I defrosted them in a small bowl, sucked up small amounts into a turkey baster and gently squirted them in front of their noses. It was effective and hilarious fun too! Plus, you can then use the turkey baster to pick up any bits they missed

Huge congrats on your new axolotls, aren't they just awesome?

Ps: we do so love pictures *hint*

I feed mine with a pippette i buy in bulk off ebay. I defrost the worms, then squirt some in front of each and they are quite used to it now they come and attack the pipette as soon as they see it, they even come up to the surface as I have 8 mouths to feed some are impatient and swim upwards trying to chase the pippette round lol.

My axies are probably about 2 inches in length. I'll definitely try and load some photos up, I've only just got internet on my desktop (yesterday), so I'll upload some photos either tonight or tomorow. Is it safe to take photos with flash? I know they don't like bright light and have no eyelids.
I'm going to go and buy a few pippettes today, thats an incredible idea! Turkey baster will definitely be the alternative if I can't find the pippettes though. It sounds like fun feeding them haha. At the moment though, I've been giving them about a quarter of a cube of frozen bloodworms each every day, but I've read I'm supposed to feed them every other day.
How much frozen bloodworm should I feed to each, and how often?
Thanks Mewsie, I absolutely love them They're a bit stressful at the moment though, as I'm adjusting to their behaviours.
My wild type is scaring me a little though, as he's always floating near the surface and nipping- making bubble popping noises. Does this mean that he's hungry? He can sink to the bottom, but he's choosing to float- so I guess that rules out infections. I'm doing a 1/3 water change every 3 days, cleaning the bloodworm up after about 20 hours- so I think the tank is clean and healthy. It doesn't smell or anything- which I've been told it would if it was dirty.

I feed mine earth worms from our worm farm every2-3 days, but... If I forget to ask my husband or son to get worms for me before it's dark I use jars to feed bloodworms. I scoop water from the tank into the jar, let them thaw in that then use my palm to cover the top of the jar while I put it into the tank on it's side. The axolotls go in, eat, squirm around a bit and crawl out leaving behind very little mess! Just one suggestion, use one jar per animal... Trying to maneuver two fat axolotls out of one jar wasn't so much fun!

NevsterUK said:

My wild type is scaring me a little though, as he's always floating near the surface and nipping- making bubble popping noises. Does this mean that he's hungry? He can sink to the bottom, but he's choosing to float- so I guess that rules out infections. I'm doing a 1/3 water change every 3 days, cleaning the bloodworm up after about 20 hours- so I think the tank is clean and healthy. It doesn't smell or anything- which I've been told it would if it was dirty.

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Sounds 'normal' to me! My wildtype rarely comes to the bottom, spends all his day going back and forth and dealing with the bubbles from the filter!

I use a feeding jar for feeding time and it has made the clean up job so much easier. I would feed them as much as they could eat is a 5 minute time frame, then remove the left overs and your done.

I use a jar and scoop up some tank water to the brim of the jar and let the block of worms thaw. They sink. I then lower the jar into the water. Because the water is at the brim of the jar, tank water doesn't rush in to fill the jar and disturb the worms in the process. I lower the jar to the bottom and turn it upside down on to a jar lid maybe 8cm across and leave it there for a few minutes for the worms to settle onto the lid. I slowly recover the jar so as not to disturb the worms too much, leaving the worms exposed to the axies on the lid. The lid happens to be plastic and has sand in it to stop it floating away. The axies find the worms by themselves. I've got tow lids at opposite ends of the tank, ideally one for each axie but it doesn't always work out like that. Sometimes the axies make a bit of a mess but I've never cleaned them up and the worms are always gone by morning. Maybe the cherry shrimp help clean up. I'm not up late enough to find out. Good luck.

I give my axolotls the blood worms frozen to their mouths. Have had no problems at all. My cubes are not that thick and they melt fast. Still gives off a little waste tho, but I guess I'm lucky; my axolotls love cleaning the bottom from the blood worms. Spotless!
At the moment I'm going with earth worms, tho. My axies really do love them.

I'm going to go and buy a few pippettes today, thats an incredible idea! Turkey baster will definitely be the alternative if I can't find the pippettes though. It sounds like fun feeding them haha. At the moment though, I've been giving them about a quarter of a cube of frozen bloodworms each every day, but I've read I'm supposed to feed them every other day.

How much frozen bloodworm should I feed to each, and how often?


I feed my babies with the pipette as well. I thaw the bloodworm, then squirt it in each container, every morning, if they eat it all they will get a second feeding after I clean them for the evening. They are all about the same size as yours.

Mine eat wax worms as well, i buy them live from the pet shop, and put the rest in the freezer after they've had some wiggling ones! They love 'em! But these shouldn't be the only food as they're quite fatty.

I also feed mine live river shrimp bought from an aquatic store. There's nothing better than watching the axies chasing or stalking the shrimp!

Live food id def the best to feed your axi! its also great fun to watch!

if i dont dig up an earthworm i just pop some bloodworms into the tank. My axoltol eats them all during the course of an episode of tv. by the time im done i look in the tank and the only thing to clean is poop.

i might get some shimp that sounds like fun!!!

Hi Joe, its Ian you had the axys off me, i would recomend a feeding jar, scoop the axys out of the tank( rather than netting/picking them up) but the bloodworm in with them, give them fifteen mins to eat, then return to the main tank, i prefer to feed them seperately as they can display food aggression to each other.

When one can't get pipettes or a turkey baster, you could also use disposable syringes without needles.

You can also use these syringes to make floating food sink:
One puts the food in the syringe and fills it with water, then you place your thumb over the hole so no air can get in. Then you pull a couple of times on the syringe, this will suck all the air out of the food. When you put the food in the tank it will sink immediately. This is great for chiclid sticks a.o.

The frozen blood worm is not really the best thing to give them, if they are still small try to get live blood worm they will have much more fun chasing it around and lives for a few hours sometimes days, especially if you have sand in the bottom of your tank like me, the axies will the root around in the sand to find them, this also does the job of getting rid of the air pockets that can form in the sand.
When I first started giving my young live food i had half a coconut shell wedged in the sand to form a cave, I filled a turkey baster and squirted it in there, they would soon come over and started eating and chasing the worm, is fun to watch them hunting down their food.