axolotl feeding time

my axolotls have recently become quite agressive during feeding time. they bite each other on the face and on the limbs. can anyone give me a reason for this.

also my two black axolotls have started nudging my albino axolotl. They have never done this before and I don't know if I should be worried or not.

Hi.
I tend to feed my axolotl in two separate areas of their tank, this tends to prevent any accidents. I feed Jeffrey first ( he is bigger and older) and then the youngster Bruce...if I am too slow however Jeffrey tries for seconds. I am now wiser to this so I tend to have back up just in case!!
Do you know what sexes your axolotl are , I used to see my male nudge the female towards her tail end



P.s..just noticed we are nearly neighbours!

Hi Axieboy,

There may be many factors as to their aggresion at meal time.

How old are the axies? (if unknown, what size are they in inches?) Juveniles tend to be more aggresive than adults.

How often are you feeding them?

How large is the tank?

Are there sufficient hides? Ideally, you should have at least two hides PER axolotl to give them a choice and allow them to spend 'time out' from one another.

If your two black axies are Wildtype axolotls, these tend to be more 'aggresive' than the albinos.

I would recommend that when feeding the axies, you feed them as far from one another as you can. Axies will lunge at their food and can bite their tank mates by accident.

Whereabouts are they nudging the albino? Is it constant nudging? Is the albino following them around the tank? If they are nudging the albino's cloaca this could be a prelude to eggs.

If these two axies are bullying the albino however, you may need to consider either a tank divider or moving the albino to another tank.

A little more information will help us help you lol.

My 2 black axolotls are about 4 and 5 inches long and my albino axolotl is about 5 inches as well. I cannot tell you the sex of them, I have looked on sites about sexing and I still cannot tell. I feed them 2 blocks of frozen bloodworms every 2 days as my pet shop owner told me to. and I am pretty sure they are not wild. My tank is 3ft long and it has lots of hides for them. as to the nudging it is usually around the stomach region. hope this helps.

Hehe axieboy,

The "wildtype' refers to a colour pattern, not that the axolotls are obtained from the great wilderness.

Julia and Jacq have both given excellent advice and covered all bases.

I have included a link for you to see the different colours of axies.

http://www.axolotl.org/genetics.htm

Cheers

The advice given by Julia & Jacq ("The special one") is correct, but if your still having problems you could alway get your self a tank divider and use it at feed times.

There is another method that we practice, but if I were to tell you how we feed our 3 axolotls I would start a world war 3 debate, and that I don't want to do.

I am not sure but through my limited experience I don't think they attack one another on purpose. My experience tells me that any thing that is close and goes by their close line of sight they will try & grab.

Good luck

paullism said:

There is another method that we practice, but if I were to tell you how we feed our 3 axolotls I would start a world war 3 debate, and that I don't want to do.

Click to expand...

What Paul means is that some of us actually remove our axies from the tank for feeding and put them into seperate containers. I do this and find that it works well. It also helps to keep my water clean too.

Sounds to me like they might be a little too hungry. Try feeding them a little bit more, and see if that helps. My 5 babies housed together were eating 3 bloodworm cubes every day, 4-5 every other day until I switched over to live blackworms. Now they eat as much as they want- a scoop a day, normally.

I keep 5 babies in one 20 gallon tank, and I have yet to have any issues whatsoever. I often find them piled on top of each other, but there hasn't been any nipping or aggression whatsoever.

My 3 are about 3.5 inches and eat 2 blood worm cubes every day. I'am about increase them. I think You might want to try feeding more.

Well Kira has let the cat out of the bag, so here goes.

Like you we found that feed time was a fight, we also found that left over food was fouling our water, so we now have a large container that we fill with 3 litres of tank water & feed them in that. Our 3 axies are so well trained now that it is do easy. Our water in the tank is so much better for it & the only time there is a fight in our tank is to see who can swim into the net first.... they know it's feed time.
Our guys are so use to it there is no thrashing in the net when we remove them too. Next time my daughter (Chelsea) is over I plan to take a video of it and post it on here for all to see.

On the nights that we choose to do a pellet feed Chelsea actually plays catch with them. She holds a pellet with a pair of tweesers about an inch above their head & they catch it. We are also going to record this.

I know there are lots of people that don't agree with this practice, because of possible gill damage, but as I said the process with removing our axies and placing them back is very gentle and more importantly we find this practice works best for use & our 3 axies.