I need your info

Hi all,

im looking into opening my own fish shop and with my love of axolotls will be selling them to and i wish to make care sheets to hand out when someone purchases any animal off me, if anyone has anything they would have like to be told when they got there axolotl please let me know so i can add it to the info on my care sheet also if anyone has any info on there natural habitat i would be very grateful, i am trying to find out what axolotls like best and any behaviour that is common (eg. my first 2 axolotls like to swim into the sides of the glass after they got fed) anything about them would be good as i have probably forgotten something. thank you for any info you can provide.

I think that is a wonderful idea! It seems that far too many pet shops nowadays have little idea of what an axolotl is or simply don't know how to care for them. Out of interest, where in the UK will the shop be?

The axolotl natural habitat consisted of Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco in Mexico until Lake Chalco was recently drained. I think (though I may be wrong and would be very grateful if someone corrected me) that these are fairly high altitude and rarely, if ever, get above 20C but can dip into low single figures in the winter - hence axolotls preferred temperature range.

I'm not sure that you could really say too much about expected behaviours as, from reading around on this site, it seems that they do all like to behave in rather different ways. Laziness seems to be a common one. You could also include details on their aggression if multiple axolotls are kept in cramped or otherwise unsuitable conditions as this is a behaviour that your customers would rather like to avoid, I'm sure. Other than that, it seems that the most pernicious error that pet shops make is not informing customers that their axies should never be kept on gravel due to the risk of impaction. Information on food would also be rather nice, especially if you're okay with people buying your fish as axie food. It would be good to know which ones can and which ones can't be put with axolotls. One piece of information that I wasn't told when I was new to the axolotl world was to quarantine live food. I didn't find this out until after 30 or so river shrimp had been added to my tank and my axolotl had gorged himself on a few of them! Fortunately he was fine, but I was certainly worried.

I hope this information helps, and good luck with your endeavour!

What do you mean by quarantine live food? what should i be doing with my blood worm and daphnia?

tomkeogh said:

What do you mean by quarantine live food? what should i be doing with my blood worm and daphnia?

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If you have more than one tank, feed the fresh batch of live bloodworms/daphnia to only one tank initially. If you have only one tank, this won't help you. There have been some major die-off disasters from bad batches of live bloodworms in the UK.

Thank you for your reply i am not sure where my shop will be at present as i am going to learn to keep marine before i start and i want to do this all properly, i am so fed up with being mis-sold things and then having to either start a new tank for the animal or returning it which is never a nice thing to have to do, i have also had animals die as there were mis-sold which upsets me as its never nice to see an animal die or suffer which is why im setting up my own shop. I knew i had forgotten something the thing with live foods i had missed so thank you i will add it to the care sheet, as there is such a variety of foods out there can you please tell me what you feed your axies so i can add any that i dont use and i might see if i can get hold of some for my axies as around here where i live its hard to get much else but bloodworms, tubifex and mysis i also know they can be fed beef heart any others?

Other foods, earthworms, slugs, woodlice, pellets.
You could stock the axolotl pellets too.

Tom - dont worry too much about the non quarentine of bloodworm etc, you cant really quarentine these. There is a risk as Jennewt has said, i personally have had no problems with my live foods.
The ones that need to be quarentined are things like river shrimp, cherry shrimp, feeder fish ie guppies etc.

Mel

I purchased Some axolotl pellets from Exotic Pets - Amphibian, Reptile and Invert UK exotic pet shop. They have them in 4 sizes and the amount I got for 8 pound looks like it will last a year! The sellers note they should not be used regularly as they are high in fat,

I have only used them once, last night, my white laucistic did not take to them but my albino was crawling up the tank to my fingers and ate them for minutes!

It is great that you are doing your research.
Towards the top of the page is a green bar, there is a very useful search function that you could use to answer most of your questions, right away.. There is also the axolotl site Axolotls: The Fascinating Mexican Axolotl and the Tiger Salamander.


Julia

bellabelloo said:

It is great that you are doing your research.
Towards the top of the page is a green bar, there is a very useful search function that you could use to answer most of your questions, right away.. There is also the axolotl site Axolotls: The Fascinating Mexican Axolotl and the Tiger Salamander.


Julia

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Thank you very much i am already using the last page you sent as i am getting several of the same answer from different places to confirm the answers are correct if that makes sense.

My pellets are from exotic pets too. With slugs its just similar to earthworms, i just hold em out or forcep them because they do get slippy.
I just throw woodlice in too, they still walk about in the water so someone will find them.
Beacuse mine are now one year old they get fed a few bitesized worms every other day. Just enough so they look right, ie head and belly same width...(although i keep mine on the slightly plump side of healthy)...and other things as treats when i come across them in the garden.

Are you planning to buy the axolotls in or breed and raise them?

Mel

melfly said:

My pellets are from exotic pets too. With slugs its just similar to earthworms, i just hold em out or forcep them because they do get slippy.
I just throw woodlice in too, they still walk about in the water so someone will find them.
Beacuse mine are now one year old they get fed a few bitesized worms every other day. Just enough so they look right, ie head and belly same width...(although i keep mine on the slightly plump side of healthy)...and other things as treats when i come across them in the garden.

Are you planning to buy the axolotls in or breed and raise them?

Mel

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Thank you, is it any worms from the garden they can eat? if so will try giving mine some, as ive got 4 axies im going to give breeding a try but if im not successful i will find a breeder actually i would probably do both as a breeder should be able to make sure the axies are genetically strong and i wont be breeding to much due to space issues ive already got 11 tanks set up in our house i think if i added a couple more for breeding my parter wouldnt mind but if i went made to breed properly he would kill me lol

Any worms from your garden will work as long as the area is pesticide/fertilizer free.