Hi everyone

[exotics]

yeah i would agree that a fine sand is the best option for axies. allows been great with mine if not nothing. much easier.

 

[oneatos]

I too voted for the invisible sand - taking all said and posted, sand is the ideal substrate for a home aquarium for an axolotl... unless you can reproduce their natural environment

 

[optimist]

I voted for a mixture. My axolotls have large slate stepping stones and large pebbles (with an external filter) and seem to like it

 

[mitchell101]

Vote

I vote for large pebbles bigger than 20mm.
I use river rocks because i think they look cool
and they work well for my axolotls.

 

[paullism]

Well even though Chelsea & I have little experience as relative new owners of Axolotls, this we can speak from experience. We originally had our 3 on large stones (large enough that they could not eat them) every thing was fine for the first week, after that we found cleaning to be a nightmare, filtration was no possible through the stones, so water quality suffered. We then decided (via the advice given to us from our learned friends here) to get rid of the stones and replaced them with a sand substrate, which we are very happy with. We have 3 small clusters of stones, more for a visual effect, but our 3 axolotls seen to enjoy laying on them.

 

[Green]

I voted for "none". Lowest maintenance, cleanest water, and safest for axolotls!

 

[mitchell101]

I'm fine with the water quality because i have half my tank clear bottom and the other half the river stones. Everyday i siphon out all the gunk i can find and move the rocks around a tiny bit to get more gunk out. I also use a net every time i feed them to get all the stuff that floats around so my water is nearly always clean. I still also do partial changes of the water every week or two and check the nitrate, nitrite, ph and everything else in it. So river stones are fine for me.

 

[Nat]

I got big pebbles in mine, no swallowing those! I'm gonna grab a thin layre of sand at weeken to keep the pants and pbbles more in place and fill up the area with nothing but glass, but I HAD to get the gravel out when I hard the stories on here and saw them trying to eat it!

 

[asprine]

Well we have sand in our tank, it's a bit of a nuisance to clean sometimes, and when axies make sudden movements they're covered in their own spa of bottom sand! But we haven't had any serious problems with them, today my sister told me she read on another forum that Axolotls ingest sand, and it can accumulate in their bowels thus causing some stress, disease or injury, but then again! That's why we're in Caudata!! No, seriously. Can anyone back this up? It kinda got me worried.

Other than that I say that sand and a couple of cobble stones, and lots of hideouts will make the axies more than happy.

But that's just me!

 

[Darkmaverick]

Hi asprine,

Actually if you want to use a substrate, sand is the most suitable. Freshwater aquarium sand, pool filter sand, children play sand are all suitable sand to use. Axolotls may ingest sand but they are passed out readily.

Gravel are the ones that cause impaction and possible death.

If you are still concerned about sand as a substrate, you can always keep the tank bare bottomed.

Cheers.

 

[asprine]

Cheers mate! that got me a bit worried before!

Thanks for the advice!

 

[connor brooks]

i have used small to large gravel since i got jaws my golden albino axolotl about 10 years she is 13 inches long and i have had no problems with gravel so that proves that it doesnt matter if you have gravel or non

 

[John]

This should not have been posted in this part of the forum. It has been moved to the axolotl section.