I always do it the hard way, need input.

[melgado22]

Hello, I finally got my melanistic Axolotl from a very kind breeder at the reptile show Saturday (he's healthy!) im realizing now that I need more sand in the bottom for some of the plants. I decided to get play sand which will be rinsed first, my question is: even with all the rinsing I will be doing, I'm sure my tank will be cloudy regardless for a period of time. Is this harmful to my Axolotl? I don't want to stress him out either, he ate well yesterday night so he doesn't act stressed in my unprofessional opinion, but not sure how to go about this. I could put him in a container while I do it and re introduce him to the cloudy mess or just keep him in there....?

 

[keiko]

A little cloudiness is not harmful to the axie. But you can keep him in a separate container with 100% daily water changes if that's what you'd prefer. There are some videos on youtube where people add sand to a full aquarium in a bottle and it comes out quite clean and without clouding up the water. Don't know how well it would work with very fine sand, but here's one video.

 

[Bunthree]

My play sand took a while to clear. A few days really. I got coloured stuff. Looks great.

 

[melgado22]

Thank you for the input, the video is helpful as well!

I like the natural look of play sand, pet stores around me only have black or white sand

 

[melgado22]

i rinsed the play sand and have officially clouded my tank (must have done the bottle trick wrong).. its been about a day and a half. my axolotl is handling the cloud alright however tonight when it came time to feeding.. well first i couldnt see him, i had to slowly sweep my hand around to get him to move, second when he did come out his frills are red and his stomach is a lighter grey. when i first brought him home, he was a velvet black all over, no trace of the red gills. is this an indication of something?? he still ate perfectly well, normal activity level... i figured i would leave him alone but if its an indication of something wrong, i would rather find out sooner than later...

oh the only other thing i can think of is, the breeder was feeding pellets and i started feeding him earth worms since i brought him home (about 3-4 days). he loves the worms, doesn't even think twice about eating them.

 

[keiko]

Red gills just means there's a lot of blood flowing through them and dark axie's color can change - sometimes be darker and sometimes lighter. As long as there aren't any signs of stress and he's still eating well, I wouldn't worry too much. You could do a big water change to get rid of at least some of he cloudiness. Just be careful not to stir the sand when adding the water.

 

[melgado22]

Ok cool, he definitely has more space here, I'm sure he has been sharing a smaller tank up until now. Relieved to know it's nothing harmful!