Question: Best foods and snacks?

[MommaK]

I understand earthworms are the best (same as nightcrawlers?) and second comes blood worms (can I buy those alive? And self breed?!) But can I put snails in the tank (will he eat em or will they help clean? Benefits?) Guppies i have fry already so I wanna have those as a snack but I have heard about Daphne? And insect larve? And shrimps?Talk to me about less common methods and sources of food and best economy tricks for a 20 gal tank with 1 axie

 

[Blackbun]

Dear Mommak,
A varied diet is fundamental.
It is possible to breed blood worm but it's so much easier buying it in.
You have many questions, which is great as you're thinking about your animal's wellbeing and that's to be commended. However, and this is what I'd did (and still do) you can put key words to each of your questions into the forum search and do some backround reading as the questions you are asking have all been covered before in depth. The first thing I learned about keeping these animals is someone has experienced the very issues/concerns/queries etc as I had.
Good luck.

 

[Kochebi]

Here's what I've heard:

Earthworms are best as they're closest to what a wild axolotl eats on a regular basis, and a quality pellet is second best. My axolotls are currently on a pellet based diet from pellets I buy from the caudata.org user Michael Shrom.
Blood worms are a good source of food but only until your axolotl reaches about 4-5 inches in length, after that they don't have enough nutrients to sustain a diet.
Daphnia and live brine shrimp are what is most often used to feed larval axolotls. I bred and raised some once and, at least for me, brine shrimp were way easier to hatch and raise and to feed to my little guys than daphnia.
Live Black worms are also a great source of food for small axolotls that are an inch or two in length.
Live fish are tricky and should only be used as treats every now and again. My axolotls seem to do fine when I feed them two or three feeder guppies, then again my axolotls are all over 9 inches long. People have argued over live food for several reasons, one being that the bones in the fish can be hard to digest and may cause impaction or other internal issues for axolotls. I personally am not sure how true this is but it is a plausible risk. Another thing is the risk of too much thiaminase from certain species of fish. This is an article I was given that is for garter snakes, but if this affects all animals that eat fish I wasn't going to risk it affecting my axolotls too. All About Thiaminase - Gartersnake.info

I hope that helps a bit!