New Axolotl Owner!

Well as planned, tomorrow I will be getting my first axolotl! First thing off, I want to let everyone know I'm fully planned for the purchase. I have a 10 gallon tank, thermometer, plants, some decorations, etc.

Now I'm not sure what type I should put at the bottom of the tank. Doing research, they say the best thing for your axolotl is to have large enough rocks so the axie won't eat it.

But looking through many photos on this site many of you have sand for the bottom. I would love to have sand instead but is that the best route to go?

Lastly, I need to still buy food for my new axie, I'd prefer to deal with frozen worms (if need be) or pellets. Do they prefer live over dead?

Thanks guys!

Gravel is the only thing you want to avoid. Because its small enough to be swallowed, but large enough to not be easily passed. Sand passes right through them, so there's no worries with using it. Just avoid anything small enough to be swallowed, and larger then sand.

I like having a sandy/gravelly substrate but you can leave your bottom bare .. Just make sure whatever you use is cleaned throughly!

Axies love food that moves and many claim Earthworms are the most nutricious food for Axies. I feed both pellets and worms as I found one of mine likes worms where as the other prefers pellets..

Axies usually feed by sight first so a wiggly worm swiftly catches attention whilst pellets and frozen worms (which can get very messy in the case of bloodworms) take a little while to locate..

I prefer sand, but I've done all three kinds of substrates. Large rocks are a pain to clean and hard to aquascape nicely. Bare bottom is great for a temporary home/quarantine since it's super easy to keep the tank clean, but it my opinion it doesn't look natural enough. Some people think sand is hard to clean, but I find it really easy since it all just sits on top also it looks very natural. The problem you will run into with sand though is live plants. The roots of the plants need oxygen and sand tends to compact restricting the roots of oxygen. So you need to make sure you stir a little around the plants every now and then to keep the sand from compacting.

For feeding I generally like to feed them small pellets and frozen blood worms when they're younger. The main problem you will have with pellets is the nutritional value. You want to find something as close to 45% protein and 20% fat as you can also if they sink it's an added bonus. A problem you will face with blood worms as they are messy. To overcome their messiness I do two things. I use feeding jars to contain the blood worms and I also turn everything off on my tank so the water is 100% absolutely still and place the blood worms on a dish and slowly set them in the tank.
When they're adults I feed them live worms, live fish, and pellets. You will want to rinse off each worm individually so you don't introduce any extra nutrients from the soil they're in. Some people shy away from live feeder fish because the fish can transmit parasites to the axolotl. So I would only recommend getting them from a reputable place or breed them on your own.

Hope this helped!

Wow thanks everyone for your quick responses! I know that the axolotls in the store that I'm going to today are going to be about 4 months old. So I'm thinking as of right now I'll try to find frozen blood/black worms and pellets to feed my axie for the first couple months (at least a start to see if he/she will eat it).

I'm going to go with black sand. I found some at my local petco, but it is meant for dry land reptiles. Will that be a problem?

The black sand shouldn't be a problem, just be sure to rinse it well.