Question: Food

[Jake]

Hi,

I have been considering making a home made staple diet for my axolotl with all the essentials but withoutthe necessity to manage live foods... I believe if I boil 500g of earthworms, 150g of bloodworms, 50g of mealworms, 50g of beef heart, 50g of daphnia, 50g of chicken, 50g of shrimp and around 100g of vegetables (lettuce, carrot, corn and peas) then blended it with some gelatin or agar then froze it in ice cube trays this would provide an excellent all round, staple diet that can be grabbed from the freezer... The only things I was wondering about is a) whether the vegetables are necessary, b) whether the gelatin is dangerous, c) whether the taste will be accepted by the axies and d) whether there are any vitamins or minerals I should add in powder form? Also, I have a new tank cyclic for them at the moment and was wondering if any fertilizers are dangerous and why my jungle vallisneria may be dying? Also, has anyone had success with cherry shrimp breeding at 18 degrees celcius? Thanks for all the help!

[Cloudy]

the vegetables are not necessary, [I'm hoping someone else will jump in on the gelatine] if it's moving, the axies will generally accept it, taste isn't an issue really, just tweezer feed and jiggle.

also the beef heart isn't necessary, and neither is the chicken. the earthworms, bloodworms, shrimp, and daphnia, are about all you need. but really live is definitely best, nutrition will be lost in this process.

earthworms will provide all the nutrition they will need.

[Jake]

Thanks for the quick reply... It's good to know the vegetables are not necessary, I just thought it might help them with some vitamins... The chicken I thought was a bit iffy, I just read that they would sometimes eat it after a period of not eating... Mealworms I spose are more like a tasty treat I guess... So how would 600g of mealworms, 300g of bloodworms and 100g of daphnia be? Also why would freezing lose nutrients?? Also I heard that earthworms must be left in a container eating through unbleached butchers paper for a week prior to feeding them to animals, mainly in order to remove unwanted bacteria etc... Is this true and if so could the same be said of worms bought from a store to be used in a worm farm? Thanks again for all the help, I hope soon to have two extremely happy and healthy axolotls! Also anything on fertilizers? I have been considering adding iron and root tabs in addition to my flourish excel...

[Amanda]

i no a lady that has a few and she just gets the worms, blood worms, beef heart etc what ever it is u choose mashes it up uncooked and freezes it into cubes they also do a similar thing at the local that sells axo's, but no veges