ClaireC
New member
Hi all! I am a new axolotl owner of three babies whom I have been hand-raising for about three weeks. They started out maybe 2.5 cm in length and are now almost 5 cm with tiny back leg buds. They started on blackworms and have since transitioned to bloodworms because I ran out of blackworms and nowhere around here sells them (the breeder gave me some to start with but it was a Craigslist exchange, so I have no clue how to get more). They seemed to have been fine for the past 3 days on this new diet, but today my darling melanoid baby (the largest and most greedy with food) was rolling around and thrashing in his/her tank. I immediately did a 100% water change and it seemed to stop for a bit, but the tail end was floating towards the surface so he/she was constantly swimming around to get back to the bottom.
Everything I've read says this is probably constipation. S/he was thrashing around and bumping repeatedly into walls/the one big rock I have in the tank, so I took him/her out, put them in a plastic container with lid (not sealed, just set on top) in my mini fridge, put a cloth over the container, and put a thermometer in there. It's about 8 C in the water. I just looked and there was some poop, so I am pretty sure it's constipation from the bloodworms.
My questions are, is there anything else I need to do? Is s/he too small to fridge? (I hope not
) How long should I leave baby in there/how soon should I take him/her out? Also, I believe I am overfeeding them. I have read that you should feed babies as much as they will eat every day, so that they will grow, but clearly that fouls the water quickly and causes constipation issues, so how much should I really be feeding them?
I can post some pictures if necessary.
Sidenote: each baby axie is in its own 2.5 gallon tank, and I do 100% water changes every day with dechlorinated water that has been aged for at least 24 hours. Another baby has a lump on its side but isn't acting any differently, so today I fed them each two of my few remaining blackworms (my melanoid would only eat one) and the other two are acting completely normal, occasionally swimming up to the front to beg for food as they have always done when I walk by, but otherwise resting or gently moving around.
Everything I've read says this is probably constipation. S/he was thrashing around and bumping repeatedly into walls/the one big rock I have in the tank, so I took him/her out, put them in a plastic container with lid (not sealed, just set on top) in my mini fridge, put a cloth over the container, and put a thermometer in there. It's about 8 C in the water. I just looked and there was some poop, so I am pretty sure it's constipation from the bloodworms.
My questions are, is there anything else I need to do? Is s/he too small to fridge? (I hope not
) How long should I leave baby in there/how soon should I take him/her out? Also, I believe I am overfeeding them. I have read that you should feed babies as much as they will eat every day, so that they will grow, but clearly that fouls the water quickly and causes constipation issues, so how much should I really be feeding them?I can post some pictures if necessary.
Sidenote: each baby axie is in its own 2.5 gallon tank, and I do 100% water changes every day with dechlorinated water that has been aged for at least 24 hours. Another baby has a lump on its side but isn't acting any differently, so today I fed them each two of my few remaining blackworms (my melanoid would only eat one) and the other two are acting completely normal, occasionally swimming up to the front to beg for food as they have always done when I walk by, but otherwise resting or gently moving around.