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Question: Axie, Need Help!!

daniel mcc

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Hi, i am new to axolotls and have a few questions i need help answering:
- is the white spots on it gills an infection or is it normal?
- i was told it is a 2yo, it is 7 1/2 inches in length and one or two toe tips are darker then the rest, so is it an adult and mature?
- how much should i feed it?, i have been feeding it half an earthworm a day (its the third day) i have read that if its a child, it should eat half a worm a day and an adult would get half a worm every other day. is this correct?

any help will be appreciated :happy:
 

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chriswakef

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Hi, i am new to axolotls and have a few questions i need help answering:
- is the white spots on it gills an infection or is it normal?
- i was told it is a 2yo, it is 7 1/2 inches in length and one or two toe tips are darker then the rest, so is it an adult and mature?
- how much should i feed it?, i have been feeding it half an earthworm a day (its the third day) i have read that if its a child, it should eat half a worm a day and an adult would get half a worm every other day. is this correct?

any help will be appreciated :happy:


Hello! Welcome to the wonderful and wild world of axolotls :happy: Your axie looks like a very healthy golden albino--the white spots that I could see in your pics look completely normal, and golden albinos, I have found, when they age, they get more and more white spots. (I have an 8 year old golden albino, named Sheldon, that I have had since March 2010. Sheldon also has dark spots on his toes which does indicate maturity).

With regards to feeding, earth worms are definitely the preferred food if you can do it. For an adult axolotl, feeding one "medium" sized worm 3 or 4 days a week would probably be just fine. I used to buy my earthworms from Pet Stock and kept them in a tupper-wear container in the fridge which used to totally freak my husband out, LOL. In the end though, Sheldon got lazy with the worms and we ended up giving them to friends that had a compost in their back yard. For most of his life he has been eating Hikari Carnivore Sinking Pellets which are much more nutritious than the "axolotl pellets" you can find in most pet shops (he normally gets 5 pellets Mon, Wed, Fri) that are hand fed to him. I do also buy Fish Fuel's "Axolotl Food", just to vary his diet a bit. (I cut the square into quarters, I usually run one of the quarters under cold water to thaw out the ice crystals, but it's still maintains its form in a square, drop it over his nose and he inhales it--if the quarter is too big, I cut it in half. The other 3 quarters I wrap in foil and put back in the freezer. Later in the day, if he still seems hungry, I'll give him another 2 or 3 pellets--I always hand feed him in the front of the right side of the tank, so when, and if he is still hungry, he will make his way into that corner and perch with his chest out and arms up, almost like begging).

Anyhow, sorry for the long reply. Let me know if you have any other questions. Also, as we (in Australia) are going into spring / summer, be prepared to run your A/C if you are in one of the hotter states! And be prepared to do, ideally, weekly water changes of 20% dechlorinated water as axolotls are messy--I siphon poop and uneaten food immediately as I see it, but if you don't, water parameters go off quite quickly--the past 7.5 years have been quite the learning experience ;)
 
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