lingkongczx
New member
Hello, dear friends!
I'd like to share my new photos that I took today and I want to talk about the way to keep axolotls in China.
(My English is poor so there may be some mistakes of expression)
These six I bought on Dec. 27th.2011
I was changing the water then.
It’s amazing to see so many of your are creating a balanced ecosystem for your beloved axies. However this is not something that can be easily achieved by the general population on the other side of the world.
As a web master of the Chinese Axolotl Postbar, with the aim of providing a healthy living place for my axies, I experimented numerous methods such as setting up tanks of various sizes, equipped filters of different types, and adding in plants as well as high quality nitrifying bacteria imported from overseas. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as I would have hoped, mainly due to the following reasons.
1. As residents of the country with the biggest population in the world, we have very limited personal living space in China. Therefore, setting up big tanks is not an option for most of us. And for the same reason, the usual 2 axies/ 10gallon condition is also very hard to meet for us. So please don’t be too surprised if you see a few more axies in a small tank than you would like to because you know they are just too cute to only have a few.
2. In our country, besides the international cities like Beijing or Shanghai, majority of the population is still living without an air conditioner. An perfect example is the city where I spent 4 years for my bachelor’s degree, Chongqing, AKA 1 of the 4 “stove cities” in China, where less than 20% of the population actually own an air-con. So it’s not hard to imagine what the rest of China is like. Without an airc-on or chiller to maintain the water temperature, the huge difference in day night temperture often leads to a sub-optimal nitrigen cycle.
3. Since owning an aircon can be a luxury for many of us, getting an aquatic chiller for our axies is totall out of the question. For the past 2 years, I literaly only saw 1 person getting it.
So, after a few setbacks, and learning through trial and error, we figured out a way that is most suitable for our conditions, and it is simple, economic, also resulting in healthy, beautiful looking axolotls.
Due to the limited living space we have, we prefer small tanks coupled with high quality sponge filters. Sponge filters have been often overlooked but based on our experience, they can be quite efficient in maining a good water quality without creating much water current, and supply oxygen to the tank at the same time.
Most of us bought this model of sponge filter.Cheap and filters work best.(Not advertising
)
We clean up every part of the sponge filter
This is public WC so it is very dirty:angry:.
Complete water change is carried out every 1-4 days depending on the size and load of the tank. Since a proper nitrogen cycle is not set up, every side and
corner of the tank is fully scrubbed for a clean environment.
We emphasize on using dechlorinated water to prevent damage to the skin and gills of the axies, by using water conditioner or leaving the water out for a day
or so. We also adjust the temperature of the tap water to that of the old water in the tank in order to reduce stress level during water change.
I was cleaning my tank
These are "Sodium thiosulfate",for removal of hypochlorite in tap water.
After minutes,put the axolotls into the tank
This this my small tank in my hand-painting shop(Not for sale)
We like to feed clean living food when possible. When small fish are used as a food source, we recommend having additional black worms or bloodworms in the
tank to prevent fish nibbling on the axie gills.
They had never be sick even a little
I 'd never put sand or stones into my tank becouse something had happend that I never forget .
Once I had a WT axie swallowing a rock, and he was initially misdiagnosed as having a swollen head. After gathering a lot of info online and purchasing all sort of medication, I tried treating him with all possible means, and even drug administration by a syringe. However, no improvement was observed. Only until day 13, I accidentally saw a black rock in his mouth, and the rock finally removed by a pair of blunt tweezers with care. The measurement of the rock was 2.5cm in diameter!! It was lucky that no serious damage was caused, and he returned to full health soon after, just no longer as pretty as he used to be. In a few cases, swallowing gravels and pebbles can be fatal because they may block the intestinal digestive track of the axies. Therefore stay away from such substrates!!
Sand is not recommended because it makes our frequent water changes a nightmare. Instead, some big rocks such as aragonite or crushed coral (put in a stocking) may be beneficial as they can act as PH buffers. If rocks are used, make sure the size is greater than 3cm in diameter to prevent accidental swallowing by axies.
This is the one.
For this reason I found a good way to make our tank as beautidul as yours--to print some pictures and stick on the back and the bottom of our tanks.
I download some clear and large pictures online. Resize them with Photoshop(as the same size as our tank) and print them that waterproof film on surface.Then stick the pictures on KT Board.
I Have a large collection of these beautiful pictures,if anyone want them I 'll send to your E-mail.
.
Are they cool?
Some of my little tanks were made by myself.
In fact most of the glass was picked up from trash - -#
At last I want to say .In China, since frequent complete water change is not ideal for the real aquatic plant, we usually put in artificial plants to provide places for axies to play and mess
around. A lot of them look really real and our axies love them.
We believe frequent water change allows axies to be constantly exposed to fresh water, an environment closely resembles their real home in Mexico.
Through trial and error, we found the above method very suitable for chinese axie lovers with limited budget and living space. Minimizing temperature difference during water change, fully dechlorinating water before use, performing frequent water chang and tank cleaning are the keys for healthy and beautiful axolotls.
That's all,thanks for reading my post and best regard to everybody
I'd like to share my new photos that I took today and I want to talk about the way to keep axolotls in China.
(My English is poor so there may be some mistakes of expression)
These six I bought on Dec. 27th.2011
I was changing the water then.
It’s amazing to see so many of your are creating a balanced ecosystem for your beloved axies. However this is not something that can be easily achieved by the general population on the other side of the world.
As a web master of the Chinese Axolotl Postbar, with the aim of providing a healthy living place for my axies, I experimented numerous methods such as setting up tanks of various sizes, equipped filters of different types, and adding in plants as well as high quality nitrifying bacteria imported from overseas. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as I would have hoped, mainly due to the following reasons.
1. As residents of the country with the biggest population in the world, we have very limited personal living space in China. Therefore, setting up big tanks is not an option for most of us. And for the same reason, the usual 2 axies/ 10gallon condition is also very hard to meet for us. So please don’t be too surprised if you see a few more axies in a small tank than you would like to because you know they are just too cute to only have a few.
2. In our country, besides the international cities like Beijing or Shanghai, majority of the population is still living without an air conditioner. An perfect example is the city where I spent 4 years for my bachelor’s degree, Chongqing, AKA 1 of the 4 “stove cities” in China, where less than 20% of the population actually own an air-con. So it’s not hard to imagine what the rest of China is like. Without an airc-on or chiller to maintain the water temperature, the huge difference in day night temperture often leads to a sub-optimal nitrigen cycle.
3. Since owning an aircon can be a luxury for many of us, getting an aquatic chiller for our axies is totall out of the question. For the past 2 years, I literaly only saw 1 person getting it.
So, after a few setbacks, and learning through trial and error, we figured out a way that is most suitable for our conditions, and it is simple, economic, also resulting in healthy, beautiful looking axolotls.
Due to the limited living space we have, we prefer small tanks coupled with high quality sponge filters. Sponge filters have been often overlooked but based on our experience, they can be quite efficient in maining a good water quality without creating much water current, and supply oxygen to the tank at the same time.
Most of us bought this model of sponge filter.Cheap and filters work best.(Not advertising
)
We clean up every part of the sponge filter
This is public WC so it is very dirty:angry:.
Complete water change is carried out every 1-4 days depending on the size and load of the tank. Since a proper nitrogen cycle is not set up, every side and
corner of the tank is fully scrubbed for a clean environment.
We emphasize on using dechlorinated water to prevent damage to the skin and gills of the axies, by using water conditioner or leaving the water out for a day
or so. We also adjust the temperature of the tap water to that of the old water in the tank in order to reduce stress level during water change.
I was cleaning my tank
These are "Sodium thiosulfate",for removal of hypochlorite in tap water.
After minutes,put the axolotls into the tank
This this my small tank in my hand-painting shop(Not for sale)
We like to feed clean living food when possible. When small fish are used as a food source, we recommend having additional black worms or bloodworms in the
tank to prevent fish nibbling on the axie gills.
They had never be sick even a little
I 'd never put sand or stones into my tank becouse something had happend that I never forget .
Once I had a WT axie swallowing a rock, and he was initially misdiagnosed as having a swollen head. After gathering a lot of info online and purchasing all sort of medication, I tried treating him with all possible means, and even drug administration by a syringe. However, no improvement was observed. Only until day 13, I accidentally saw a black rock in his mouth, and the rock finally removed by a pair of blunt tweezers with care. The measurement of the rock was 2.5cm in diameter!! It was lucky that no serious damage was caused, and he returned to full health soon after, just no longer as pretty as he used to be. In a few cases, swallowing gravels and pebbles can be fatal because they may block the intestinal digestive track of the axies. Therefore stay away from such substrates!!
Sand is not recommended because it makes our frequent water changes a nightmare. Instead, some big rocks such as aragonite or crushed coral (put in a stocking) may be beneficial as they can act as PH buffers. If rocks are used, make sure the size is greater than 3cm in diameter to prevent accidental swallowing by axies.
This is the one.
For this reason I found a good way to make our tank as beautidul as yours--to print some pictures and stick on the back and the bottom of our tanks.
I download some clear and large pictures online. Resize them with Photoshop(as the same size as our tank) and print them that waterproof film on surface.Then stick the pictures on KT Board.
I Have a large collection of these beautiful pictures,if anyone want them I 'll send to your E-mail.
.
Are they cool?
Some of my little tanks were made by myself.
In fact most of the glass was picked up from trash - -#
At last I want to say .In China, since frequent complete water change is not ideal for the real aquatic plant, we usually put in artificial plants to provide places for axies to play and mess
around. A lot of them look really real and our axies love them.
We believe frequent water change allows axies to be constantly exposed to fresh water, an environment closely resembles their real home in Mexico.
Through trial and error, we found the above method very suitable for chinese axie lovers with limited budget and living space. Minimizing temperature difference during water change, fully dechlorinating water before use, performing frequent water chang and tank cleaning are the keys for healthy and beautiful axolotls.
That's all,thanks for reading my post and best regard to everybody
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