Axolotls...?

Question

Since Yahoo Answers has no 'amphibian' section, I'll ask the friendly fish folk :)
I've read up on Axolotls and, frankly, I think they're fantastic. So, Axolotl owners, please give me some personal wisdom about these little fellas. Anything I should know that's not in the books? Foibles? Quirks?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I've kept and bred them. The biggest difficulty people will have in keeping them for their natural lifespan is that they need to have COOL water - that's water under 70o, preferably under 65o. Depending on where you live, that can be hard to do. This also mean no lights on their tanks (which increase the temperature). In these conditions, they can live for 10+ years, without them, they live for around 2.

If you buy them young, be careful of housing multiple axolotls together - they turn cannibalistic. Lost limbs can be regenerated, as long as the damage doesn't occur too far up the leg. Once they're around 3-4 inches, I've kept them together. Also be careful housing mixed genders, or you may find a tank full of spermatophores and eggs when you least expect it (you can sex them fairly young because the males have a "bulge" at the base of the tail where the hemipenes are located).. The young aren't the easiest to raise, because of needing live food for the first month or so, and the need for large areas/individual containers for keeping them.

They can have problems with swallowing air and/or internal infections which cause them to retain some trapped gasses - you'll often see the axolotls at the surface "belching" and blowing bubbles when this happens. Try to give them food that sinks, and don't overfeed them to help prevent these from happening.

Once you get one, you'll fall in love with their faces - they look like little puppy-dog faces when they watch you. They also have an "unusual" way of eating underwater - they go up to their food and "inhale" so strongly, they usually lift themselves off the bottom. If you get one, you'll see what I mean by this.

If you haven't come across these in your reading yet, the links below are worth the rad:

Answer 2

Axolotls are nocturnal. they will spend a majority of the time on the bottom of the tank during the day. floating is a sign of stress and illness

Answer 3

Axolotls are brilliant, we had them at a vets where I worked and people were fascinated by them. They can be boring at times as they sit around a lot (or maybe that was just ours) but otherwise their brilliant creatures. We used to feed ours with frozen blood worms and similar things. :)

Answer 4

get some fish drugs which will help with rigidity and get some fish salt to assist with the decrease. do not over feed the two he will pop decrease back into shape after it rehydrates and slightly time.