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The axolotl, scientific name Ambystoma mexicanum, is also known as the Mexican walking fish, even though it’s not a fish, but an amphibian. In the wild, they’re indigenous to Lake Xochimilco in Mexico. But you can buy them from breeders or big aquatics shops almost anywhere. Unlike fish, axolotl require quite a bit of care. They’re not only pretty to look at, but they need commitment and love. I’m putting this “guide” together for both your use and mine.

Please note that my way of doing things isn’t the universal way of taking care of your water monsters. I’m just here to give you insight on how I do things and what works and doesn’t work for me and my axolotls. (Disclaimer; I will use ‘I’ and ‘we’ through this post, because the axies are also my housemate’s. I’m just the only person writing this post.)

This is part one, where I will be talking about everything you need to know when getting your first axolotl. In part two, I will be talking about the mating and breeding stuff for those of you who are looking to branch out more than you initially anticipated. (Like we did.)

Setup

Before you go out and buy your first axolotl, you need a place for them to stay. Since axolotls can grow quite big, (up to or in some cases over 30 centimetres) you will need a tank of decent size. We started with a 55L one, but had two axies in there and they grew pretty big, so we had to upgrade to a 64L tank.

You don’t necessarily need to put any sort of surface in the tank, but if you decide to, opt for either fine sand/gravel or stones that are over 3cm big. Any other gravel, they might try to eat and choke on. We have opted for fine sand and they love it!

Axolotls need a place to hide, so choose ornaments with big enough holes in where they can hide. Just be careful of any rough or sharp edges; sand them down if there are any.

You might want to look into getting aquarium plants. You can get plastic ones, sure, but again, these might have rough edges and axolotls tend to prefer real plants over the artificial kind. (Female axolotls will in some cases lay their eggs on the leaves!)

Getting plants is slightly more complicated than you think. You need low maintenance plants because of the temperature of the water. (More on the water later on) We chose Anubias Nana and Anubias Barteri for our tank. The reason we picked these is that they’re pretty much indestructible. I put ours in little plant pots I got from Ikea; but there’s different ways of housing aquatic plants. There’s a pretty good article on caudata.org that goes into much more detail! P.S., make sure the plants are in the tank three days before you move the axies in, this ensures the plants get accumulated to the water.

And now the most important part of the setup; the water.

You don’t need to fill the tank up to the very top. The rule of thumb is they need at least as much water as the length of their body. But always opt for more, just so they have room to swim around!

The temperature has to be between 16 and 24 degrees Celsius. (That’s between 60 and 75 Fahrenheit) That should be room temperature. You don’t need a heater! Axolotls are not tropical animals. Cured tap water is perfect for them, just get a thermometer in there as well.

We clean the tank and change the water every two weeks, but you can do a partial water change every week as well. Axolotls are dirty little cuties, so they will make a mess!

Most tanks come with a filter, but consider the type of filter you get. The flow has to be steady, but not at all heavy. We have a waterfall filter that gives the perfect water flow. Get an air stone as well, trust me. Axolotls need oxygen, since they have lungs as well as gills. And they enjoy chilling in the bubbles! The surface of the water needs to be broken by tons of little bubbles, that’s how you know you’ve got good circulation going on.

Lighting. Most tanks come with LED lighting. This light has to be soft, because Axolotls are sensitive to light. (They don’t have eyelids, so try to keep them out of direct sun/light.) We only turn their light on when feeding them or to do check ups.

I’ve heard various different things about how long you have to wait before putting the axolotls in your new tank. With our first tank, we waited two weeks. With our second, we waited five days. So in our experience, anything between five days and two weeks is fine. This gives all the equipment, water and plants the time to settle and work properly!

When you get your axolotl, they will be in a plastic bag with some of the water they used to be in when you bought them. Don’t just dump them into your new tank! Allow the entire bag, with axie and all, to lay in your tank for about 20 minutes before freeing the little animal into their new home. The sudden change of temperature might cause the axolotl to freak out otherwise!

Feeding

So now you have set up your tank and acquired your axolotl(s), you need to know what to feed them. You have various food sources to pick from; some more easily to obtain than others. We first started out by the basic axolotl pellets. There’s the basic ones (3mm pellets) for axies up to 18 centimetres in length. When your water monsters grow bigger than 18 centimetres, you can feed them “XL” pellets, which are 5mm big. Don’t dump half a container in their tank, aim for around 10 pellets per axolotl, depending on how big (and hungry) they are.

As far as frozen food goes, we feed them cubes of bloodworms every now and then as a treat. I tried to give our beasties frozen brine shrimp for a change, but they didn’t like it very much. But hey, you don’t know if you don’t try!

Recently, after much looking around, I have found a pretty decent place to get live food for the axolotls! I ordered bloodworms, but didn’t realise they were the small kind. Still, the axies were curious and ended up liking them a lot! I will need to get some larger ones in the future. (If you’re wondering where I get the live food from, check out reptilecenter.com! Cheap live food and fast delivery! Plus they have a subscription scheme you can totally customise, which is worth looking into! Not sponsored, by the way.)

As I’ve mentioned before, axolotls are messy animals. So it’s best to clean up the food they haven’t eaten to prevent the tank from getting dirty faster.

Oh, fun fact, axolotls are also cannibalistic. Although cannibalism mostly occurs in early stages, they might still nip at each other if not fed regularly.

We feed ours at least every other day. But you can feed them every day if you wish. You will get to know your beasties and when they’re hungry, so after time you’ll get into a routine. Just watch out for any cannibalistic behaviour!

Health

From experience, I can tell you an axolotl’s health is super important. We have lost one of our first water monsters due to what turned out to be fungus and us not knowing what to do. So PLEASE take care of your aquatic children!

Axolotls can get stressed and stress can cause them to get ill. It’s hard to explain the signs of stress because they’re easily confused with your axolotl just being silly. I’ve learned not to panic at the slightest odd behaviour. You just need to know what you’re looking for if you’re worried they’re ill.

(Which is easier said than done, as I’m not a vet in the slightest.)

From my personal experience, if your axolotl constantly comes up for air and floats upwards, having trouble staying at the bottom, something is off. Sometimes, they just have trapped gas in their bodies and need a good burp. But if trapped gas is not the issue, they might be ill.

Another sign is not eating at all. Axolotls love to eat, so if they’re not even making the effort, you might want to keep an eye out.

And the biggest sign in my experience; physically noticing fungus starting to form. This might start to appear around the cloaca (where the gills are) or their butt and looks like a fluffy sort of attachment. This is dangerous and can kill your axolotl.

Separate the ill from the healthy and put them in a salt water bath or in the fridge for a few days. Quarantine is what they need and they should (hopefully) be alright in a few days’ time.

To eat the food you must first become the food.

Meet the newest addition to our ever growing axolotl family; Onyx! We’re not sure if it’s a male or female yet (I’m thinking female and J thinks male) but we love them nonetheless! We’ve always wanted a melanoid! One thing’s for sure, Onyx knows when it’s feeding time because they get super active and silly. 😂