Mexican Walking Fish?

Question

How hard is it to look after a Mexican walking fish. We are considering getting one next week and are unsure how hard it is to look after them as we have had mixed response's. Any feed back is much appreciated..Cheers

Answer 1

Rather than going through various cut and paste answers, why don't you take a look at the websites itself. They will tell you a lot about these fishes and their care:

http://www.waterworldaquarium.com.au/?g=6&s=1&t=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_fish
http://www.practical-pet-care.com/fish_question.php?ID=2.900225629

:-)

Answer 2

Mexican Walking Fish Pet

Answer 3

AWSOME a mexican walking fish... great choice ok names hmm Kesare, Lola, and Nikkey

Answer 4

No more difficult than looking after frogs.

Just like frogs, toads,newts, and salamanders, Mexican Walking Fish are amphibians. Their body and gills must remain moist so they can breathe. They are cold-blooded creatures i.e. their temperature is controlled by the surrounding temperature. As they are the larval form, they don't develop lungs so cannot go to the final stage of being land animals (in the lab some were given hormone injections and developed to the final stage). Their large feathery gills allow them to draw oxygen from slow moving water.

Varieties. Many colours have been developed - black, white, albino,yellow, gold, blue..

Sexing. The male has a slender body compared to the female, and has two swellings under the hind legs.

Feeding. Earthworms,tadpoles,fish fry, grubs, strips of raw fish or meat(no fat).

Water Conditions. PH 6.8 to 7.4 and soft to medium Hardness. Change part of the water (one third) every couple of weeks. Syphon off waste and uneaten food. If using townwater, remove chlorine if changing more than one quarter of the aquarium water. (Chlorine Neutralizer from your Pet Store or water left standing for three days).

Breeding. The pair should be at least 1 year old. The tank I use is 50 litres (@ foot tank). Breeding is normally in winter. I throw in some ice to drop the temperature to induce spawning. (Temperature should still be above 12 degrees C). After laying the eggs (check photos to see what they look like), I remove the parents. The eggs take a long time to hatch- 2 to 4 weeks. Place the fry in shallow trays (5cm). You need 10 square cm surface area for each baby.

Feeding Fry. Infusoria is needed for the first 2 weeks. Put a lettuce leaf into an icecream dish. Add boiling water. When cool, add water from a lagoon or establish aquarium. This water will contain some starter organisms (single celled creatures). Because there is no competition and plenty of food, these will multiply into millions after 5 to 7 days. Feed these to the fry. After a week, start adding baby brineshrimp. Change part of the babies' water regularly.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

I wouldn't buy it if I don't know how to take care of it. I hope you ask your petstore owners first.

Answer 7

Despite the name, these are salamanders, NOT fish. I've kept and bred them a number of years ago, so I can speak from actual experience. Most of their care is quite easy, but the most difficult part of keeping them is providing them with the correct water temperature. The were originally found in deep lake environments, so the water the need must be cold and have little dissolved oxygen content. By cold, I'm talking 65o at most. Juveniles can tolerate warmer temperature, but their lifespan shortens to about 2-3 years. They SHOULD live for 12-15. This usually means purchasing a chiller for the tank, or keeping it a room with a good air conditioner.

If there's too much dissolved oxygen in the water, they lose their gills and become terrestrial (land-dwelling). The gills are a good part of their appeal, as axolotls are one of the few salalmaders that show neoteny (keeping the larval characteristic of gills throughout their life). I always kept mine either in shallow containers with elodea or other oxygenating plants as juveniles to about 2 inches, then transferred them to 10 gallon or larger aquariums with an undergravel filter. I used airstones to power the UG filters, and added a valve to the airline to control the rate of air flow (very slow flow is needed, so you don't really get much filtration from this).

Feeding is no problem except for axolotls less than 1 1/2 inches - right after the eggs hatch, they require live foods because they need to see movement to trigger a feeding response. I started them on newly hatched brine shrimp, then converted then to live blackworms and bloodworms after the first week. Once they were eating live bloodworms, I started mixing in thawed, frozen bloodworms until I could get them to eat the frozen variety only. Adults will eat just about anything once they learn food doesn't have to be moving. I've used a variety of things, including frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp, gammarus, turtle and fish pellets, and canned fish and shellfish. They're cool to watch when they eat - they do a sort of "inhale the food" where they open the mouth and the suction brings food into it - they are so enthusiastic about eating, they'll often "inhale" so hard, it lifts them up off the gravel. Hard to explain just what this looks like, but if you get them, you'll see this behavior yourself.

If you happen to get a male and female in the same tank (easy to tell apart once they're about a year old, males have a distict "swelling" under the tail where the hemipenes are located) chances are you'll get eggs. Males deposit spermatophores, which look like little white hershey's kisses. The females picks these up to fertilize her eggs, which she'll lay on some object in the tank. If you want to try and raise them, you'll need to separate the parents from the eggs. The eggs hatch in a few days, just how fast will depend on the water temperature. At this point, you have to be set up for live foods. Raising them takes a good time commitment, as there needs to be a constant supply of live newly hatched brine shrimp for the first week. You can't just add a lot to their tank, because they need saltwater to live more than an hour or so, and if you overfeed, you foul the water. So I always ended up making up 2-3 batches of shrimp the first week to have enough of the right size on hand for feeding. I was really glad when I got them all converted to frozen, because this was much more convenient. The young are also cannibalistic - they eat anything that moves, including the feet/legs of their siblings. Fortunately, their limbs will grow back if only the outer section is removed, but raising them also means a lot of space, so they don't have much opportunity to come into contact with each other. I used a lot of disposable plastic containers (like the Gladware sandwich sized containers) and plastic shoe boxes in those days.

Axolotls come in a couple color variations - I had "normal" (brown with black speckling), albino, and leucistic (white with black eyes) varieties. There's also a melanistic (black) variety that I never could find.

If you'd like more info on their care, I highly recommend this website: http://www.axolotl.org/


NOTE: Also, there is some inaccurate information in this article copied previously: http://www.geocities.com/aquariumd/axolotyl.html

Axolotls will attempt to metamorphose into terrestrial animals whenever the conditions aren't correct for them, usually from too much oxygen, illness, poor water quality, loss of gills from ingestion by tankmates - see #1 and 5 in this link: http://inky.50megs.com/axolotlnewfaq.html#Question1 however not all are successful in this attempt. If you notice that the gills are shrinking, you need to determine the cause and try to correct it. Otherwise, you should prepare a land area where the axolotl can get itself out of the water for when the change occurs. Once they've metamorphosed, they don't require water in their habitat, only moist (not damp) substrate for burrowing: http://www.axolotl.org/tiger_salamander.htm

Answer 8

http://www.betterliving.co.nz/content/atHome/Animals/axolotls.aspx

Answer 9

MEXICAN WALKING FISH (Ambystoma Mexicanum)

The Mexican Walking Fish is a fascinating creature, looking and often acting, like miniature pre-historic monsters. Whilst they live in water like fish, that is where the similarities end. The Axolotl is actually an amphibian in a paused state of metamorphosis. They can grow to a size of up to 30cm. These animals are kept as pets all over the world.
Walking Fish come in various colours from dark grey/brown to an albino form (which has a white body and bright pink gills), a golden form and a spotted pattern which is seldom seen.

HOUSING
Axolotls are best housed in conditions similar to goldfish. The temperature and water requirements are the same. Most ideal is a temperature between 10ºc and 22ºc, a pH between 7.0 and 7.6, and water hardness between 150 and 300ppm.
A full grown pair of axolotls is best maintained in an aquarium of at least 60x30x30cm.
The tank should be well aerated and filtered, although don't use too large a filter that results in currents in the water as your Axolotls won't like this. Water quality and clarity is important, as axolotls extract oxygen from the water through their gills just as a fish does. Lighting is best kept moderately dim, since axolotls are nocturnal in nature.

GRAVEL AND ORNAMENTS
Do not under any circumstances use small gravel or sand in your Axolotl home. As Axolotls tend to snap quickly at their food, they gulp as they do this and often suck in large quantities of water, food and gravel in the process. Small gravel can easily pass through to the stomache where it remains unprocessed. Unchecked this can lead to fatal results for your pet. Ideally use large gravel or pebbles, 20mm or larger in size to avoid this problem.
For decorating the tank, stick to items like large flat pebbles, man-made resin rocks and bridges, etc. Items that can provide a hiding place for the Axolotl are also beneficial to provide some cover from bright light if necessary as Axolotls like dark shaded areas.
Whilst Axolotls are accustomed to sudden swift movements and hence tend to uproot live plants easily, having some live plants like Elodia, are beneficial to help reduce the waste load on the aquarium. Plastic plants sometimes a better option as they tend to be more difficult to uproot.

HANDLING
Whilst Axolotls are amphibians, handling should be avoided as much as possible. Handling may result in their slime coating being damaged with your Axolotl being more exposed to parasites and bacteria just waiting for an easy target. If you must handle them (to move enclosures or when a major re-design is in order), hold them carefully with two hands, one supporting under the front legs, head and gills, the other hand under the back legs, supporting the tail and stomach. Be careful when handling as Axolotls will sometimes have a tendency to thrash about at this point and a drop from height could prove fatal. Don't leave them out of the water for long, as just like fish, they can only breathe through passing oxygenated water through their gills.

FEEDING
Axolotls should be fed a varied diet. In addition to frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and dried foods available to purchase in store, Axolotls can be fed small pieces of raw lean beef, liver or beef heart. Occasional feeding of earth worms, tadpoles or even small fish is also beneficial.
Feeding every second day is usually sufficient for adults; juveniles require daily feeding. Feeding will also be less during colder months, with increased feeding requirements as temperatures increase. At temperatures below 10ºc Axolotls usually refuse to eat altogether. Always remember to remove any uneaten food, otherwise pollution will occur.
If you desire, your Axolotl can usually be trained easily to eat food straight from your hand. A little patience is all that is required to have a well trained pet 'eating out the palm of your hand'.

BREEDING
Male and Female Axolotls are difficult to differentiate, even when sexually mature, which is at about 12 months of age. The male is more slender, has a longer tail, a narrower head and a swelling around the genitalia. The female lays between 300 and 1000 eggs when she spawns in early spring. The eggs hatch in about 2 weeks at a temperature of 14-18ºc. Parents should be removed from the tank after spawning and young are best raised on live food.
When a large number of axolotls are kept together, it is important that they are all well fed. Hungry individuals may attack others in the tank. In the event that a limb or portion of the walking fish is bitten off, it will regrow. The damaged individuals are best isolated and given extra food and attention. The regeneration process seems to be more rapid at lower temperatures.

LIFE SPAN
Given the right conditions, an axolotl should provide 10-15 years of enjoyment, although it is not unheard of for some pets to live to 25 years of age.