I recently got my first Axolotl and I'm absolutely enamored with these goofballs. I love my little golden fireball, but I have some concerns about his behavior.
To give a bit of background, I adopted a 6-7" golden albino Axolotl from a friend of a friend about a month ago. The owner was very knowledgeable and took good care of him, but my gold really didn't get along with his adult wild type. To be more specific, they constantly fought until one day my gold managed to rip all of the wild type's legs off. I was told that he's just naturally a jerk, and that I shouldn't put other Axolotls with him. I chalked it up to the different sizes and went ahead anyway because the price was good, Axolotls are really cute, and I figured there weren't many people who would take him in.
I thought if I gave him time he would mellow out, but he's still really aggressive. His water parameters aren't perfect because I had to replace the filter last week, but I've been trying to keep the tank clean and help it cycle again smoothly. The 20G tank is in an area of low light, the water is crystal clear, I've switched him to earthworms this week and feed him 2-5 red worms a day, and he's not physically showing any signs of stress. He still bites literally everything in his tank and constantly nips at me whenever I put so much as a finger in the water. He's even snapped at me from behind the glass. Obviously he can't really harm me, but I was pretty set on having more than one Axolotl. More importantly, I think the fake log decoration I have in there will cut him up if he keeps snapping at it.
Is this behavior reasonably normal? Will it subside? Can an Axolotl be inherently aggressive, or conditioned to be aggressive? Can I ever safely introduce a new Axolotl?
To give a bit of background, I adopted a 6-7" golden albino Axolotl from a friend of a friend about a month ago. The owner was very knowledgeable and took good care of him, but my gold really didn't get along with his adult wild type. To be more specific, they constantly fought until one day my gold managed to rip all of the wild type's legs off. I was told that he's just naturally a jerk, and that I shouldn't put other Axolotls with him. I chalked it up to the different sizes and went ahead anyway because the price was good, Axolotls are really cute, and I figured there weren't many people who would take him in.
I thought if I gave him time he would mellow out, but he's still really aggressive. His water parameters aren't perfect because I had to replace the filter last week, but I've been trying to keep the tank clean and help it cycle again smoothly. The 20G tank is in an area of low light, the water is crystal clear, I've switched him to earthworms this week and feed him 2-5 red worms a day, and he's not physically showing any signs of stress. He still bites literally everything in his tank and constantly nips at me whenever I put so much as a finger in the water. He's even snapped at me from behind the glass. Obviously he can't really harm me, but I was pretty set on having more than one Axolotl. More importantly, I think the fake log decoration I have in there will cut him up if he keeps snapping at it.
Is this behavior reasonably normal? Will it subside? Can an Axolotl be inherently aggressive, or conditioned to be aggressive? Can I ever safely introduce a new Axolotl?
