Hi There,
Hoping someone on here will be able to give me some advice or reassurance.....
I am new to keeping axolotls and have recently purchased two (one gold, one leucistic). We have had them for about three weeks now and all seemed fine, though now the leucistic has slowly stopped eating! Since I'm not greatly familiar with their behaviour yet, I am not sure if this is normal or not, and if i should be worried? The book I have on them says that they can go months without eating, but the gold one is a monster in comparison. He will eat nearly everything you give him and is growing nicely, he's also very active in the tank. In comparison, the leucistic seems quite docile, he doesn't move very much and hasn't eaten in about four days. When he does it it tends to be one bite of bloodworm from the tweezers and he's done. His tank mate has managed bloodworm, browning worms and prawns and eats quite a lot in one go. The lecuistic did manage about a quarter of a prawn on two occasions but this is the most he has eaten so far... He's also quite a lot smaller than the gold when they sit side by side and this wasn't as noticeable when we first got them, so either one has grown or the other shrunk...
We have been having some issues keeping the temperature down (it seems to like to stay at 24 no matter what we try- including fans and ice bottles), though at its lowest we have been able to get it down to 20. I wondered if this could be affecting is appetite and energy, but this seems unlikely since the other one is thriving? I am checking constantly for fungus etc but there is no sign of this either.
So far my theories are: He's either very fussy, Not as healthy as I think, or perhaps intimidated by his tank mate, who's quite a bit pushier than him, though they do lay on top of each other sometimes??
I would really appreciate any advice you can give me, I'm starting to really worry that something might happen to him
Thanks
Serena
Hoping someone on here will be able to give me some advice or reassurance.....
I am new to keeping axolotls and have recently purchased two (one gold, one leucistic). We have had them for about three weeks now and all seemed fine, though now the leucistic has slowly stopped eating! Since I'm not greatly familiar with their behaviour yet, I am not sure if this is normal or not, and if i should be worried? The book I have on them says that they can go months without eating, but the gold one is a monster in comparison. He will eat nearly everything you give him and is growing nicely, he's also very active in the tank. In comparison, the leucistic seems quite docile, he doesn't move very much and hasn't eaten in about four days. When he does it it tends to be one bite of bloodworm from the tweezers and he's done. His tank mate has managed bloodworm, browning worms and prawns and eats quite a lot in one go. The lecuistic did manage about a quarter of a prawn on two occasions but this is the most he has eaten so far... He's also quite a lot smaller than the gold when they sit side by side and this wasn't as noticeable when we first got them, so either one has grown or the other shrunk...
We have been having some issues keeping the temperature down (it seems to like to stay at 24 no matter what we try- including fans and ice bottles), though at its lowest we have been able to get it down to 20. I wondered if this could be affecting is appetite and energy, but this seems unlikely since the other one is thriving? I am checking constantly for fungus etc but there is no sign of this either.
So far my theories are: He's either very fussy, Not as healthy as I think, or perhaps intimidated by his tank mate, who's quite a bit pushier than him, though they do lay on top of each other sometimes??
I would really appreciate any advice you can give me, I'm starting to really worry that something might happen to him
Thanks
Serena