Concerned about a store

[yonykins]

Hello, this might be a long one, so sorry in advance. I'll put a tl;dr at the end.

My axolotl Leviathan is a semi rescue.

He's 3 years old and very active and seems to be in great health.

But he didn't start that way.

I got him after my sister's fiance's little brother and sister stopped taking care of him. They each got an axolotl for their birthday, a wild type and a golden.

The wild type was aggressive towards the golden, leading them to get a separator.
Still, they found the golden floating dead on the wild type's side of the tank and concluded that he killed her.

But the thing is, they did not regularly feed them or change the tank. They did not have a filter or a bubbler and I doubt they even cycled the tank. But the worst thing is that they had small pebbles as substrate. I am almost certain the pebbles are what killed her, and in fact I found two pebbles in Leviathan's tank that he was able to pass after having him for over a year. The golden probably wasn't so lucky.

I've tried to explain this to my sister and she is adamant that it must've been Leviathan who killed her, not the tank conditions. She told me that the store said it was fine to have them, and in fact they gave them some of the pebbles.

I visited the store yesterday and found they have two young adult axolotls in a fairly small tank with swallow able pebbles. I was very saddened by the sight of them.

I talked to one of the owners about how pebbles are not good substrate as they are swallowed and kill axolotls. I told her that the people I got my axolotl from bought theirs here and the pebbles lead to one of them dying. She defended herself by saying that they keep the pebbles clean and don't feed them pellets. She seemed surprised by what I was saying. This is strange to me because that was the first thing I found in my research on this site: don't have pebbles in the tank.

I didn't want to be anymore condescending than I already was. The two women who own the store obviously care a lot about their animals. It's a small exotic pet store specializes in reptiles. But I'm concerned about the welfare of the axolotls they have and that they will continue to sell axolotls to people without properly educating them and thus leading to more deaths.

tl;dr death of an axolotl because of pebbles in the tank lead me to find the store who gave them the axolotls and pebbles to find they are keeping axolotls in a tank with pebbles and had no idea of the danger. They will continue to sell axolotls who will live in bad conditions. The owners care, but how can I convince them not to have pebbles in the tank without being rude?

As a side note, the axolotls did not look very healthy, but that may just be the way they are.

 

[qannp]

You could give them a care sheet and suggest to do a litte research on their own. If nothing changes within a week, I would report the store.

 

[yonykins]

Thank you, I wanted to send them here, but was a little nervous. I'll come back better equipped!

 

[Iske]

I'd gently point them to this site or another source and emphasize that you're concerned for the well-being of the animals. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people would rather refuse to believe that they're wrong than do what's in the best interest of the animal, so I'd start getting the numbers of the right people to call. And be prepared to help educate the authorities as well since axolotls aren't the most common pet. My friend had to convince animal control that a cockatiel was being kept in inhumane conditions once because they just didn't know.