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Question: Right food for axolotls?

Ollieouting

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Hi guys, i've got an incredibly picky albino axolotl who won't eat ANYTHING suggested to me (bloodworms, nightcrawlers, axolotl food tabs etc) but recently someone at my LFS suggested to me Hikari sinking carnivore pellets and he absolutely LOVES them. He'll eat several a day and he's even starting to put some weight back on, and his tankmate LOVES them too and will eat almost twice as many. My problem though is i'm not sure whether it's a balanced diet for them? I've tried to supplement other foods in but they refuse them, they only want these.

The ingredients on the packet are: fish krill, krill meal, brewers dried yeast, cassava starch, soybean meal, wheat starch, fish oil, wheat flour, dried seaweed, spirulina, DL-methionine, potato starch, astaxanthin, garlic, and a whole bunch of vitamins and additives that i could spend ten years writing down. The crude fat is 5.0%, crude protein is 47%, and crude fiber is 3.0%

Is this an ok diet for my axolotls or do i have to enforce other foods?
 

Kitan

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Hey Ollie! I am really happy you found an alternative that your 'lotl will eat :) There are a fair number of people who feed their axolotls the Hikari sinking carnivore pellets as a staple and have no ill effects from it. IDEALLY a worm is the best and most complete diet with some other things thrown in for variety and as a treat, but since yours really doesnt want these things, I would stick with the pellets you have and just keep an eye on him :) You can try repashy grub pie to mix it up :)

That said, it is very abnormal for an axolotl to refuse bits of Nightcrawler, so I would suggest you make sure your 'lotl is pooping and has no other concerning secondary conditions.
 

Ollieouting

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Hi Kitan, both my axolotls are pooping VERY regularly so I haven't been worried about that. I think they might just be too small to properly eat worms yet? They're both juveniles but even when I cut them up they're uninterested. They've bitten my hands numerous times in their enthusiasm to eat these pellets so I guess they've figured out what they like!
 

Kitan

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*laughs* Yeah, my guy likes to eat my hand too.

My guy was about 5" when I started feeding him cut up nightcrawler; had to be cut into like 8-10 pieces for him to take it. Honestly though, if they are loving the pellets, then rock it :)
 
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