A Gaggle Of Silly Little Questions.

[sara]

Sorry, I thought I would lump these all together instead of making seprate, short posts and spamming up the forum needlessly.
1, When I got my female axie she only had three legs, but since I got her the leg has grew back rapidly but now she's gone and ripped one of her toes off, its like dangling off the stump. It doesn't seem to be bothering her, nor is it bleeding, nor is it infected, should I just leave her to get on with it? I doubt there's much I can do.
2, Is too much live fresh food a bad thing for the axolotls? I say this after keeping dogs, rabbits and fish and finding out that too much fresh food, whilst good for them, can upset their digestion, does the same go for the axies?
3, I'd gone away over christmas and new year to stop with my inlaws and left my pair in the care of my father, he was given strict instructions on their care and looked after them well, but all of a sudden they've become really... Vicious... Not towards each other, but just towards who ever goes near the tank, they sort of storm over and try and get at anyone within a meter of them and will almost leap out of the water to get at food (friends used to bug me to let them feed them, but now get freaked out because how 'enthusiastic' they are about their food). They were a lot more timid when I left them, but it turns out my father has been playing with them and teasing them with their food... I have to ask, is this normal behaviour?
3, They both look like they have a fungus on their toes, but they've had this nearly two months and its doesn't look like its eating away at the flesh nor bothering them, I wondered if it is fungus or just bad eye sight as their feet are starting to get the black on them properly, could they just have the spots on the end of their toes? They're also Leucistic and are heavily spotted with brown.

Anyways, i hope that wasn't too much and I hope you don't mind me posting it all in one go.

 

[karrie]

The only one I can help with is the being vicious. Mine acted like that for a bit. He went on a growing sprit and just wanted to eat more. He was hungry. Did you move them to your dads house, or did he come over to yours. May be stressed by the move.

 

[sara]

He came to my house, as far as I know their routine never changed whilst I was away... Other than the higher interaction.

 

[forrest]

#1 the toe probably wont bother it, not sure if the toe will or wont grow back, i suspect it wont, could be wrong.

#2 Live+fresh in same sentence throws me off. In my personal opinion Live food is the best for axolotls. Worms are great. But in life every thing in moderation and varation is great. Obvioiusly you cant feed it worms every day and only worms.

#3 With all pets they are timid at first until they adapt to there new surroundings. Your axolotls reconize humans as food source and they want to eat. Know what happens when i get near my tank that has 20 little fish in it? its like they become piranahs trying to get at what ever side of the glass i am at, becuase they know im the food man.

Im a firm believer as feed the axolotl as much as it wants to eat ONLY if you know when it starts to look unhealthy. Theres a certain size that they should be and if you look around at enuff healthy axolotl pictures on this forum you will see it. I also have seem some mega fat ones that i notice have eaten to much. Basicly feed them as much as it wants long as its not spitting it back up. I seen many opinions on how much they eat, it factors down to a few things, Water tempature dictates there metabalism, super cold water they wont need to eat as much, warmer water they may need more. I dunno theres to many things to factor in to make a proper guess for you, long as they are not super skinny your doing a good job.

as for the fungus who knows i cant see it to judge what it is.

 

[sara]

My pair have never been ones to shrink away from the lime light, the settled in very quickly and were eating within hours of getting them, but they've really bloomed in the last week. I have them next to my bed, because I thought it was cute to watch them mooching about their tank when I went to bed, but now I get up and they sit there all expectant like the sky's going to open and worms are going to fall on their noses.

The fungus is hard to photograph, I guess you'll appreciate how tough it is to photograph them, let alone the tiny tip of their toes, but I will try, but for now its like a dark green colour and it looks almost velvet. But I'm not sure, I know it sounds odd, but in other lights it just looks like dark splodges. I'm sorry that's not a great amount of depth there.

 

[heihei]

Sara

The toes should regenerate but depending on its age may take several weeks to longer (younger axies regenerate faster than older axies). Also, when it regenerates depending on the amount of damage to the toes it may not regenerate exactly how it was. Hard to explain but one of my babies had his/her foot chewed off by its sibling and is starting to regenerate the foot but rather than separate toes, the new foot is very webby looking.

The dark toes aren't fungus unless they have open wounds. Dark toetips usually show on albinos and leucistics as they mature; and white toetips on the wildtypes as they mature. Fungus is white and if you look at it from certain angles (depending on how much there is) it can look fuzzy or like little white hairs sticking up or cottonwoolly!

I think if you can get the live fresh food and they eat it; especially earthworms then it's fine. You soon get to know how much to feed them. I'm axiesitting my sister's axies and they devour earthworms (one of hers is particularly greedy and will eat 10 worms if you gave it to her, so I've been warned! but the rest will eat enough then turn away after a couple of inch size worms). My sister primarily feeds hers earthworms as she has a few worm farms already set up (they may get to eat meat strips once every 3 weeks to a month if that but other than that only worms) They won't eat pellets or frozen bloodworm cube (thankgod because I find it messy). Hers are very healthy looking on the worm diet. If axies stuff themselves/have too much they usually regurgitate the food either straight away or a couple of hours later

My 5 babies are only eating daphnia/mozzy larvae and live bloodworm at the moment with a bit of baby brineshrimp; but I am setting up a smaller wormfarm so I can feed baby earthworms chopped in half for my babies as they grow bigger. This is also much cheaper than spending money at the petshop on frozen/dried food.

My sister's axies and my babies all rush to the front of their tanks when it's feeding time too with expectant looks.

 

[matthew]

axolotl's are opportunistic feeders and will basically eat themselves into obesity if you aren't careful. A general rule of thumb is to feed them as much as they are willing to take in a 5-10 minute period (feeding four axolotls more than 5 pellets each in a 10 minute time frame is a struggle).