Do I Need to Put my Axies Food in a Dish?

[CaptainK1088]

Hi all. The other day I added a fine play-sand substrate to my axies tank (which was a fiasco for a couple days but the sand finally settled and the tank and looks great). I usually just drop a frozen bloodworm cube on the top of the water and let it defrost right in the tank in the morning, and at night I chop a nightcrawler in half and I will hand feed them if my axies are in the mood to grab it from me, if not I just drop it. Now that I have the sand in there, I'm wondering it's "better" to put the food in a bowl because of the sand getting in their mouths. I know its not unusual for them to consume a small rock or a little sand. I have a decorative bowl in the tank, but when i used it a few weeks ago, not only did they not find their food right away, but when they did find it my axis were nipping at each other a lot , being that it was all in one spot. When I let the bloodworms defrost, I make sure it spreads throughout the tank so they each have access in different spots and they don't hurt each other. I'm not worried about a messy tank, I have a rather large apple snail in the tank and a few ghost shrimp to help me clean any food scraps. ( I am keeping an eye on the axies as they get older around the snail, but it really is rather large ) Thanks in advance for your help !

 

[tipnatee]

I normally just keep earth worms alive in the tank along with axolotl with bubble oxygen tube. Which normally collected enough air between the grains of sand, more than enough for any earth worms to breath under bottom of the tank. My worms can stay alive in the tank with axolotl for weeks till they eat them all up. Super easy no mess no pick up no clean up after.

 

[shadowfox306]

We didn't put ours in a food dish at first and noticed that our axie was eating mouthfuls of sand throughout the day. It seems to be less of an issue now that she has a dedicated food bowl.

 

[paperpanda2345]

I personally think it has to do with the type of food you're feeding your axie. If you're feeding food look blackworms or bloodworms, anything remotely small (maybe small worms), I would use a dish to just pinpoint your axolotl to where the general food source is. If it's something big like earthworms I don't use a dish. But in general I don't see the harm in using one.