Prawns..

emmyk

emmyk

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I've seen a few people feeding prawns. Not sure about this... but I was thinking of going to the fish market and getting some small shrimp or something as a treat for my axie :) any ideas?

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I disagree. Prawns are salt water species and therefore they have a salt and other compound/element content that is entirely inadequate for a fresh-water animal.
Fresh-water crustaceans on the other hand are excellent choices for a varied, healthy diet.

PS: Why is it that whenever i hear the word "treat" i think of an old woman feeding tuna to a poodle named "Precious"?
 
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You could always set up a small tank to breed cherry shrimps (Neocaridina heteropoda). You can do this in that Nano Cube thingy, but all setups are pretty low in maintenance and don't take a lot of space.

It's possible to breed them in your newt tanks themselves, if the newts don't eat them too fast for them to reproduce. I currently have a stable population in my H.orientalis and P.deloustali tanks. If I have enough shrimps, some of them are put in my axolotl tank. Most of them don't make it very long though....
 
Bear in mind that terrestrial, fresh water and salt water crustaceans tend to have high salt content compared to other invertebrates. Woodlice and daphnia typically 0.80-1.00%. Salt water prawns are almost double at around 1.6%.

Considering crustaceans would make up a significant % of an axolotl's natural diet is there a RDA for salt with amphibians? I ask because daphnia and woodlice form a staple for some of my animals and could be considered a high salt diet.
 
And what about iodine content? By salt, i didn´t just mean sodium chloride.
 
I know this sounds stupid, but I'm pretty sure if I bred shrimp I wouldn't have the heart to feed them to my axolotl.

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I used tiger prawns as part of the diet of my Siren intermedia, when I had them. I used the frozen, raw tails and defrosted them in a jug of freshwater, chopped into strips and left to soak for another 30mins-hour. Based on taste (a crude method, I know!), the soaking reduced how salty they seemed. Crayfish would have been better, but they carry chytrid (as do many freshwater crustacea), so I didn't want to take the risk.

I wouldn't use them as a staple, but they seem fine to use occasionally.

C
 
Thanks so much. Yeah, I would use them as an occasional treat, not a daily thing:)

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So I just bought two big white shrimp, just two because I only want it as a treat and I want to make sure it works out, so I just defrost them in freshwater and cut them up and they're good?

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This may seem silly but I fed my axie some small bits of those prawns and I've never seen his gills this vibrant! He looks happy too. Definite treat.
Plus I love the smile he gets when he's eating it. :)
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So while we were food shopping today, I stopped by the seafood counter to check out some prawns. They didn't have any, but the guy recommended a bag of frozen fresh water shrimp.

They're massive. It says 8/12 on the bag; i have no idea what that means, but they're easily 4 to 5 inches long. They're farm raised from Bangladesh, individually flash frozen, raw and in shell but with out the heads. The label says they're checked thoroughly for disease and cleanliness and that they pride themselves on their quality. There's no name of the shrimp, just "fresh water shrimp". They're ment for human consumption.

Would this be a suitable axolotl shrimp treat? Soaked, de-shelled and cut into an appropriate size?
 
We tried them, and I haven't seen her snap something up that quick since we started digging up larger worms.
They were Very well received :)

Is this something all axolotls enjoy as a treat, or is it preference based? Just casually curious.
 
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