I am getting 2 month old axolotl salamanders this weekend in a 15 gallon tank. Please give starter advice!?

Question

I have been advised thus far to get larger stones as I have small gravel leftover from previous use and not to utilize the heater and filter that I also have with the tank. I have been advised to only put enough water in the tank to cover the salamanders (I'm getting 2), but I thought that I could put the tank pretty high and watch them swim/water walk. I did see this with a fully grown, so I don't want to drown the babies. Please advise!! I saw a fully grown for sale in my neighborhood a couple weeks ago and regretted not getting it. Now I'm gonna get these babies and I really don't want to kill them, they are awesome creatures. Any advice would be really appreciated, thanks in advance!!

~MissTinah~

Answer 1

I think you'll find the greatest challenge in keeping them will be maintaining a comfortable temperature for them. They come from deep lake bottoms and their health starts to decline in warm water - under 65o would be preferred. Keep them in the coolest spot in your house, no lights on the tank, no direct sunlight, a fan blowing at the tank if it gets warm (or an air conditioner in the room vented to the outside), and an occassional ice cube to melt in their water will help. If you have a major heat problem (tank regularly over 70-75o) you may need to invest in a tank chiller - and these are expensive!

Also, since part of their "appeal" is the external gills, you want minimal water movement. An airstone or undergravel filter using a valve to regulate the air flow to just a few bubbles a second is best. If you see the size of the gills shrinking, cut back on the air. They can surface and gulp air if needed. The will eat quite a variety of foods - worms, bloodworms, brine shrimp, fish pellets and turtle pellets - and I try to vary their foods at mealtime. I'd suggest asking what they've been fed up till now and continue with that, adding some new items occassionally. Young axolotls recognize food by movement, but can (and maybe should) be converted to pellets for convenience. They will take both floating and sinking varieties, but will find sinking foods more quickly and easily, so I start with these.

Also appreciated is a place to hide - any driftwood or rocks that form a "cave" to hide beneath. They are somewhat sensitive to light, so I never used one on their tanks (lights also generate heat, so another reason to avoid them).

One other item to watch - young axolotls are cannabalistic. They search for food by movement, and a worm or their sibling's leg are all the same to them. Limbs will regenerate, however, as long as the injuries don't occur frequently. Keep yours under observation until you know their tendencies. You can invest in a tank divider if necessary and they will grow out of this as they mature. If yours are of opposite gender, they may breed in your tank . At around one year of age, you can separate genders by external characteristics - males will have a "bulge" at the base of their tail that the female doesn't. Reproduction occurs with the males depositing spermatophores (these look like tall, white, miniature Hershey's kisses) which the females pick up to fertilize the eggs. If you see spermatophores and want to try to raise some of the young, get a brine shrimp hatchery (or make from a 2 liter soda bottle) and prepare for feeding larval axolotls - a new batch of brine shrimp should be started every 2-3 days. It's a lot of work, though. I try to convert to live blackworms (purchased) or bloodworms (from my outdoor pond), then to frozen bloodworms as soon as possible. Microworms or vinegar eels might be another food source, but I haven't used these personally. As they start to develop , they'll need to be sorted and separated by size so the smaller ones can compete for food. This is the point where canaballism will take place, so the more containers, the better. I've used some cheap disposable plastic food containers and rigged up airline so they operate from a single aquarium pump.

Below is a website where you can get more info:

http://www.axolotl.org/