Photo: My new (and first!) Axie!

[Rainy222]

After months of delay due to tank problems, I was finally able to go and pick up my first Axolotl today!
We're calling her Nelly (my sister picked out the name and I think it's pretty cute) but since she's only 3-4inches long and we can't really sex her we're prepared to re-name her to Nells if she turns out to be a male.
She comes from a very well run pet store, who raise their own personal stock to sell. She was one of 4 GFP babies they had for sale (and they had more normal axies in a larger tank), and even though she was a bit overpriced she seems very healthy and happy.

She's been running around her new 15 gallon tank all day, and has been happily munching on the blood worms I've left her. She stood still long enough for me to turn on the lights and snap a few pictures of her though, so I thought I'd share them here!

^ I love how she sucks in her gills before she darts forward. It looks much cuter when she does it all at once though!

 

[ilomilo]

Very cute! Out of curiosity, how deep is your sand? If memory serves, anything deeper than an inch poses the risk of trapping gas bubbles.

 

[Rainy222]

Mine is just about an inch all over, but it is deeper in spots where I have the hides supported. D: I haven't heard of gas bubbles before, thanks for the heads up! I'll see if I can't remove and redistribute some of it when I do my next water change.

 

[hacelepues]

Yeah, the issue is that the bacteria in the deeper sand may become anaerobic, which causes some really nasty smelling gas bubbles to get trapped in the sand. Areas around it will turn black and will smell like rotten eggs.

If one of those gas bubbles rises and hits a small axie, it can be pretty dangerous for them.

 

[Rainy222]

So I while cleaning out her left over blood worms this morning, I sucked up and released one of these pockets thinking it was a poop. D:
The smell was awful, like rotten eggs, but I quickly got Nelly out of there and spent the rest of the morning clearing out the tank and changing the water until the smell went away.

The sand is now just deep enough to cover the bottom of the tank and lightly cover the bases of the plants, and Nelly herself seems fine. So thank you both for informing me about this, I'm so glad I knew what that thing was when it burst because otherwise that would have been really confusing and stressful!