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1 year later.

AristotleA

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Aug 3, 2015
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In April 2015, I was getting bored and I wanted a project that would take up lots of my time. I didn't have much money, but I decided a fish tank would be nice. I spent almost 2 months doing research and along the way I discovered axolotls and how adorable they were. I bought a second hand aquarium and I cycled the tank with 5 zebra Danios. (this was the advice given by the Aquatics shop. I don't go there any more.)

Another month later, the tank was ready and I brought home 2 new friends. Leucistic axolotls, each a year old (I was told by the dodgy shop) They were in fact probably less than half of that.
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One was slightly larger and kept attacking the smaller one. This happened for a week until I took him back to the pet shop to separate them because I was worried that the little guy would get hurt or killed.

Now on his own, the little fella, named Aristotle, grew and grew and grew until he started to scare my mum and he needed his own room. This was good news for me, because it meant that Aristotle can be in a room where I control the light, noise and temperature. He was very happy until I made a mistake. My mum said he was getting lonely and she demanded I bought some fishy friends for him. I was against it at first, but I soon bought 10 white cloud mountain minnows. This quickly went down to 6. And then Aristotle had some kind of scar tissue or infection on his 2 inner gills. I got rid of the fish immediately, thinking that they must have bitten him. Nobody could take the fish, so I quickly dispatched them one by one with a large hammer. It was pretty nasty and I will NEVER try that again. Since then it's been sunshine and rainbows. He has a large tank all to himself, he is fed mostly pellets and blood worms, although I intend to locate some earth worms for him. And he has some plants, fake and real to hide in. I clean his tank every week and change a bit of water every few days. I hand feed him and tickle his back and head sometimes. Just so he knows I'm a friend. He swims a lot at night and I'll often catch him doing laps of the tank. This was taken today, after I changed the layout of his tank to give him a change of scenery.
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it's almost a year after I got the little guy, so that makes him roughly a year and a half old. He seems pretty happy with me and always looks up at me when I walk in. In case I'm going to give him some food.
 

dukezblade

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Apr 25, 2014
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Vey nice axo! Sorry to hear about the rough start with him but I'm glad things took a turn for the better for Aristotle.
 
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  • Shane douglas:
    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
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  • Thorninmyside:
    Not necessarily but if you’re wanting to continue to grow your breeding capacity then yes. Breeding axolotls isn’t a cheap hobby nor is it a get rich quick scheme. It costs a lot of money and time and deditcation
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  • stanleyc:
    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
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  • Clareclare:
    Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus Japanese . I'm raising them and have abandoned the terrarium at about 5 months old and switched to the aquatic setups you describe. I'm wondering if I could do this as soon as they morph?
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    Clareclare: Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus... +1
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