Questions about Water change techniques, feeding a 6 month old, and a bunch of other stuff

[Brainiac and Lex]

Hello everyone. I got an axolotl, Lex, just a week ago. He is around 6 months old, and for the most part he has been fairly happy. The little guy is very social and likes to stare at anyone in the room lol. I have a bunch of random questions, if you could answer any of them I would be grateful.

1. Feeding - it has been hard to gauge how much Lex should eat a day, for the first few days we fed him 2 live mealworms (about an inch long) a day. He seemed to be still hungry (but he always bites anything in the tank lol) so i tried 3 one day, which seemed like too much. For now we use pieces of frozen blood worms in vitamin enriched 'worm juice' (stabilized vitamin C), but I think we`ll just use this stuff in between buying live bloodworms, since the frozen stuff makes a mess. Should he even be eating them frozen? I unthaw them a little but too much and they just explode in the tank, so I try to keep them in between. I used pieces equivalent to maybe 1/2" cube or slightly less, not sure what size I should be doing, as that seemed to be a bit much for him.

2. Water quality - Now I know its not ideal but I have only tested pH with pool strips up to this point, (which is a bit high), as I have ordered a full drip test with nitrite nitrate chlorine and ammonia tests, as Iv`e heard the dip sticks are less accurate, not to mention stupid expensive. I keep water temp at 61ish degrees. Even still water was mostly clear up until I fed him the frozen blood worm stuff, which seemed to tint the water a little, not sure if its more from remaining worms (which I try to remove) or from the vitamin juice it comes in. If thats the case, would it really be a big problem, since its basically vitamin juice? Im still trying to change water once a week, and just after 3 days this time before we switch back to live food again. A big issue that makes me not change the water is that my tap water has high chlorine, and pH is already high. So, my strategy (maybe stupid?) is to put in Nutrafin aqua plus into the water I`m adding, let it sit, and then put in in the tank. I also add Nutrafin cycle. Not sure if I should add more than said on the bottle? Also should I remove Lex first? I did the first time, the second i diluted a small amount of both in new water just to test, it seemed not to bother him. (I also have a sponge filter - and 2 aeration things (filter included), which the movement he likes more than not). Suggestions? How often should I change the water (which I change about 30% of, perhaps a bit high.)

3. Behaviour - Lex seems to be super excited at times and lazy at others, often lazy in the morning (we relate that way haha), which I think is normal? When I feed this frozen food stuff, he seems a bit extra hyper, and even restless. When he sees me he sometimes shakes a little from side to side, which is super cute but I just hope that means hes happy and not something else? Also, how good of an indicator is a curled tail? Could he be stressed without a curved tail? He pretty much never curls it for long, hopefully a good sign.

4. Substrate and plants - currently I do not have any, Would sand or large flat stones be best? I have a couple large stones which I think he enjoys. My fam says he should have substrate but not sure if Lex even cares really, although he almost ate his poop off the bottom one time so Ive been watching that like a hawk and removing this stuff often. I also have this EZ vac which I`m not even sure works, its just a glorified manual siphon that you just shake supposedly... mostly though Ive just used a turkey baster. Ive also seen that live plants might help buffer ammonia? I also heard he would eat them though, any suggestions? I only have fake ones right now.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

 

[DragoTheAxie]

Hi! I'll try to help where I can

First bloodworms can be feed to axolotls but they should not be a staple food since they are low in nutrients. Some good staple foods for axolotls are earthworms/nightcrawlers or pellet food. Frozen food isn't a very good idea. I would keep the frozen food you already have but only use it if you're out of other food. To get an idea of how much food Lex may need I feed my full-grown axolotl around 1 earthworm a day or about 7 pellets a day.

High chlorine will not be a problem since you are using a de-chlorinator. The ph from your tap being high should also be fine as long as it stays about the same.

Plants are a good idea, I have some in my tank and I've never had problems with my axolotl eating them. While other plants are somewhat optional you should definitely get a moss ball for the tank. I have two anubias plants and a moss ball in my tank so you could try that. If you get sand you should get very small grain sand. If your axolotl is less than 5 inches though no sand is okay since they could get impacted. When they are bigger you could get sand if you want. I have a bare bare-bottomed tank however and it works great.

Also, has the tank been cycled?

 

[Brainiac and Lex]

Thanks Drago! I will look into moss balls. I figured frozen food wasnt ideal. As for cycling, the person we were buying from on kajiji practically forced the axolotl at a certain time, so sadly the tank was not cycled. What does that term actually mean? Just replace all the water? Thanks again for the help

 

[DragoTheAxie]

This is probably going to sound like overkill but it's completely necessary to ensure the health of your axolotl. Otherwise, the ammonia in the tank will build up and cause ammonia burns or even possibly kill the axolotl.

So as soon as possible you want to tub your axolotl in dechlorinated water and start doing 100% water changes daily.

So cycling a tank can take from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. During this beneficial bacteria grows in the filter and learns to convert ammonia(which is toxic) to a safer form a nitrate. You could also consider buying a pre cycled filter which takes a lot less time.

You should look up a cycling guide on how to cycle a tank.

 

[Brainiac and Lex]

This is probably going to sound like overkill but it's completely necessary to ensure the health of your axolotl. Otherwise, the ammonia in the tank will build up and cause ammonia burns or even possibly kill the axolotl.

So as soon as possible you want to tub your axolotl in dechlorinated water and start doing 100% water changes daily.

So cycling a tank can take from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. During this beneficial bacteria grows in the filter and learns to convert ammonia(which is toxic) to a safer form a nitrate. You could also consider buying a pre cycled filter which takes a lot less time.

You should look up a cycling guide on how to cycle a tank.

Yikes. So I did research and got my test strips in. pH is 7.6, Ammonia is 1 ppm, Nitrite is 1 ppm, and nitrate is 10 to 20 ppm. I found some ammonia reducers for my filter. I will definitely replace more water more often, but wouldnt 100% change stress him out greatly? And keeping him in any bucket or anything always stresses him out too, would 50% changes for weeks at least help significantly? ALso how bad is 1 ppm? I know they both should be 0, just not sure if theres an "instant death" number? Appreciate your help.

 

[DragoTheAxie]

Tubbing him with 100% water changes daily is extremely necessary as the water he would be tubbed is uncycled and very easy for ammonia levels to skyrocket as they already have in your tank. It really wouldn't be safe to do 50% changes, I recommend getting two containers and preparing the one he isn't in then move him quickly with a net similar to the one seen below. Also, I want to point out that tubbing does not need to be exclusively in a small container although I'm sure he would be a lot less stressed be tubbed in a small container than he is in ammonia and nitrite filled tank.

Again 100% water changes will not stress him out much at all, he might be stressed that you moving him but it is necessary and he will calm down very quickly. Not doing the water changes would stress him out a lot more and he might get ammonia burns.

It's important that the tank gets cycled and that the axolotl is not in the tank when this is happening. There are only a few types of creatures that could be in a tank when it is being cycled and be okay, axolotls are not one of them.

Like I said before you need to get him out ASAP and allow the tank to cycle. You should also not have ammonia reducers going in your tank as the tank needs ammonia to cycle, the good news is though that your cycle has already started and it probably won't take too much time as long as putting ammonia reducers in didn't make the cycle crash. The tank is cycled when ammonia and nitrites are 0 and nitrates are anything but zero.

Here is a website on how to cycle a tank you could use,

The Nitrogen Cycle: Simple Step by Step Guide For Beginners

Performing the Nitrogen Cycle is the most important aspect of keeping healthy fish. Follow this step-by-step guide to ensure you do it right and safe.

modestfish.com

Plz, follow what I said about getting the tank cycled and tubbing him with daily 100% water changes so your axolotl doesn't suffer.

 

[Calgarycoppers]

Okay so we have several thing we need to address.

First get your axolotl tubbed as your tank is NOT cycled and those values are toxic!
Do 100% daily water changes at minimum may need twice daily.
You need to cycle the tank using pure ammonia or ammonium chloride. Will attach a link to a host of handouts.

Next Food - Do not feed bugs like mealworms they can cause impaction which can cause death. handout on food will be in the link as well.

Make sure your test kit is for freshwater aquariums - it makes a difference.

Substrate - I use fine sand with huge pieces of slate sunken in which my plethora of lotls love.

Click below for my series of handouts for customers - Includes cycling, diet, essential, care etc

HANDOUTS

 

[Brainiac and Lex]

Ok. Changed my tank 100% yesterday, and turns out I missed a step in nitrate test last time... (it is a freshwater kit) so anyways 25 hours later i tested 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrite and nitrate. Guess the cycle was ruined? Anyways I've added only a super tiny amount of ammonia stuff and really only did the chlorine remover this time (pH is fine too- 7.4 to 7.6). Interesting about slate, I think he does like to grip the big rocks in there so Ill check that out. Will continue to change water. And I switched to bloodworms as non frozen earthworms r hard to come by cuz winter, but Ill look around more. So a few more questions:

1. Poop - he used to have really flaky poop, then it was solid big chunks, and now I haven't seen any thing for 1 to 2 days... I'm really scared cuz he looks for food on the bottom now, any way to avoid him doing this? Maybe only feed him in a dish or something? I hope he hasn't been eating it.... What should healthy poop look like and how often?

2. Timing the water tests - how long should I wait after tank changes before testing to figure out a maximumish level of ammonia nitrite etc?

 

[DragoTheAxie]

Is your axolotl still in the tank or is it tubbed?