Tank Setup Done

Here's my tank set up, and here are my new axies. I have two small axies, melanoid and wild type. I still need to add some plants, so far everything seems good, except for a spike in ammonia. What do you guys think, anything i should change?
TIA
-dave

Hi Dave,

Tank setup looks great. One potential issue is your substrate, there appears to be some pices of gravel which are the perfect size for ingestion.

Also looks like two leucistic axolotls to me.

When you get the plants in I think it will look really cool.

Ammonia spikes are quite the norm when you introduce new animals to the habitat as the bioload increases.

I used play sand, I'll try and remove some of the bigger pieces

Here's one of them eating, the other one is a bit shy and was eating behind the dish.



Here's another one, so far they seem to be doing fine. One is exploring the tank while the other is hidden. I had two bulbs on the lid, it seemed too bright so i took one out. Also as you can see i moved the dish from where it was before. I'm hoping to get my plants tomorrow, after cleaning them and letting them sit in some water i'll add them to the tank.

Looks great Dave. The two axies are so small and you've got them trained to eat from a plate already! I'm sure the new plants will make it look even better.

On a side note, if you ever find the rocks that hold up your cave to be unstable you can bond them together with silicone sealant.

Beautyfull tank!!! gorgeous axies!!! how old are they?

I think the axies are about a month old. The rocks on the cave are very stable, i pressed my hand on top of it and it didn't move. But i might just add some silicone just incase. I guess the axies were trained already because i just added some blood worms and they rushed over to the dish.

Here's more pictures with the plants finally put in place. I noticed that as soon as i did the shy axie decided to come out and explore. He/she was the first one to sit on the plants as well. Also how long can frozen blood worms stay in the tank before they start to go bad? I say this because it takes some time for the little guys to notice there's food in the dish.





The shy one hanging around the plants


Here's one eating on the dish


Also the shy likes eating off the sand and not on the dish

Hi Dave,

That is a beautiful tank setup.

As for feeding, i think it would be better if you separate the current quantity of food at one sitting into 2 or 3 smaller servings a day. The food will remain fresh when you only feed what is required and also there will be less leftovers and wastage. As your axie grows bigger you can then gradually give them more per sitting.

Because frozen bloodworms are after all 'dead', they cannot remain in the water as long as live blackworms or earthworms. I generally try to remove them within 30min after feeding session. In general fresh bloodworms appear a rich 'blood' like red. Once they start going off, they turn somewhat brown and then whitish. By that time, i hope the bloodworms are long removed from the tank. How long bloodworms can last in the water without going bad is really quite multifactorial. Warmer temperatures make them go bad even faster. I would not leave them there longer than 2 hours at maximum, although i highly recommend you remove them after 30min of feeding.

Cheers.

Nice looking set up Dave!

One suggestion I will make to you is about the hole in the bottom of the terracotta flower pot. You may want to either enlarge the hole with a Dremel tool, or plug it with some epoxy putty (the kind plumbers use) Holes like that can be a death trap to a growing axolotl. They can become stuck in the hole resulting in severe injury as they try to escape.

Hey did those have there back limbs before you started feeding them bloodworms?
Trying to compare them to mine.
thanks

BC they did not have the back limbs, though I could see them starting to grow.

Well I upgraded to a 20 gallon tank today as my 10 gallon fish tank started to leak badly last night. So the current 10 gallon axie tank is going to my fish and the new 20 gallon is going to the axies. I will have pictures of the new set up, and thanks for all the compliments. As for the hole in the back I will cover it up with a rock for now.