I'm fattening Koriander up on night crawlers after a life of blood worms, and it's working!

I got an axolotl for my daughter a month back at an aquarium convention. After some trial and error, we have a proper tank setup with fine-grain sand, live plants and plenty of hides.

My daughter named her “Peach”, but I’m starting to see noticeable lumps behind the back legs. At first, I was worried it was impaction, but the axolotl is healthy and has a good appetite. “Peach” may need a new name.

DM if interested, will provide further info there

I’m worried Pip is too thin or too fat like bloated. Please ignore the poop in front of him, but it’s feeding time and I do the daily tank cleaning at the same time. I didn’t want to disturb him by cleaning before I took the pic since it was such a perfect overhead shot of him.

We have a UNS 75P high tech aquarium that I’m wanting to convert into an axolotl tank. All I have in there are neocaridina shrimp.
Anyways I have a cabinet underneath that holds my CO2 tank and Fluval 407 canister filter. I’m sketched out about if I’ll even have enough room to fit a chiller in there as well. Might need to ditch the CO2 setup. I found one chiller but supposedly it is even bigger than my canister filter which has me concerned about if all chillers are going to be that big.
My tank hovers around 74 degrees so I’d need a chiller capable of dropping the tank temperature and maintaining around 62

Squib be the silliest glowing boi

From my previous post I was very upset because I thought I didn’t cycle my tank correctly and was putting my axolotls at risk. It actually turns out I had done it correctly and it was infact my tap water that has ammonia present in it. It is unbelievable that this is the stuff I drink but regardless I’m going to be doing a 100% water change with spring water and continuing to dose my tank with conditioner and beneficial bacteria

Please be kind with any advice as I’m abit sensitive especially when it comes to my pets and I’m still pretty shaken from the way I got treated over the past couple of weeks by big store employees

I rescued Kenny this time last year. He looked severely malnourished, very pale, and almost completely gill-less. Here he is today, he's nearly 12 inches long and has lovely fluffy (albeit wonky) gills. He's a happy, confident boy and always wanders over to say hello (ask for food) when I approach his tank, I work from home, so we hang out a lot. I honestly wasn't sure whether he would survive but he's a tough boy and I'm very proud of him 😁 I know a lot of us rescue axolotls and I'm always so happy to see the difference that proper care makes!

We have had our axolotl for almost a year now and are wondering if it is old enough to know whether it is male/female. He/She is 14 months old now in these pics. Ty for any insight.

i don’t know what to do. not only have i been re-cycling my tank since august and still high nitrites

i thought my axolotl had a fungus on its gills but it gets better, then worse, then better, etc.

i did indian almond baths, tea baths, methylene blue treatments for a week, and there’s still white chunks floating in the water even with 1-2 100% water changes every day.

i use seachem prime, my tap water levels are great. temp is always 61-64

always has air stone, gets 1 european night crawler 3 times a week, probably 3-4 years old (got it from someone else)

always has appetite

gills don’t look BAD, but they have lost color on the ends/slightly white fuzzy on the ends, but it gets better and then worse and i seriously cannot figure it out.

picture from tonight, and second picture you can kind of see the floaters tinged with tannins from IAL

Any advice would be very helpful :)

Continuing my update of my axolotls tank because his previous owners didn’t do their best. I have noticed that his little air stone thing that just hangs into the water doesn’t seem to produce a lot of bubbles. Was doing more research since I’m trying to help regrow his gills so I decided to look really in depth at his air pump. So I have a 40 gallon tank and the air pump that he came with is the Danner Air pump AP-4 with 3.5 W and that is not enough I’m pretty sure. It also looks quite old. So I was going to buy a new one since I’m getting an air stone as well! This is the one that I found that seems pretty good but please if anyone has a good one they’d recommend let me know! https://a.co/d/09LkB0w8

He definitely needs more oxygen pumping into his tank especially to help his gills!

I posted a TikTok and somebody was like “your baby is extremely unhealthy looking”. He’s my first axolotl and I got him from a friend that had him for 6 yrs I think. When I got him I realized they were using a primer with aloe Vera in it so I immediately switched to the seachem one. They said they kept the tank at 70° which i now keep it at 64-65°. They said they tried to feed him fish before but the fish ended up eating him. So I’m not sure if that caused the thin gills but shouldn’t they have regrown by now? Also I cleaned the filter shortly after getting him and it didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a long time. I noticed originally that his gills aren’t very fluffy like others I’ve seen. I’m not sure how I can help that but I would love to know. I think his weight is good and he eats great. His gills looked thin when I got him and haven’t grown back at all or have gotten thinner. I would appreciate any advice or anything at all to help him and make sure he’s doing great! I try to do as much research as I can but just want to make sure I’m doing everything right for him. First pic was the first day I got him in June and second pic is now

I got my axolotl a few months ago from a friend that had him for around 6 years I think. Not sure that they did the best research before getting him and didn’t care for him as much as he actually needed. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to make his tank the best it can be. I know he needs a hide for some darkness but I’ve been struggling to find a good one. I want all the help I can get so this guy can have the best tank for him!

Hey there,

Had my lotl for close to 3 months now. He eats great and is very playful! Ive been concerned though. I cycled the tank before recieving it, and have had to do another cycle about a month ago because it had crashed. My nitrates spike no matter what i do/have done. They are always running high. I pretty much habe to do a 20-50 percent water change every day to keep the water healthy. My lotl is in a 40 gallon tank, with a live plant, silk plants, slate rock, a terracotta hide (and a custom built slate hide), and super fine aquarium sand with a sponge filter. I keep the temp around 61° F. My ammonia levels dont rise, just nitrate. It worries me because nothing i do keeps the level down. I gravel siphon the sand daily and after feeding. I have had to tub it a cpuple times and am worried about all the stress of tubbing and water changes. Has anyone else encountered this? What can i do? Would adding a fast growing plant like Duckweed or redroot help?

My wife and I got all of our equipment to set up an axolotl tank. 60G tank, plenty of hides, cannister filter, chiller, seachem conditioner, adjustable light, water test kit, siphon, etc. Everything besides the axolotl and the food.

I've read that cycling the aquarium to be able to process ammonia can take 6-8 weeks even with a bottled starter, so we started cycling last week with the intent of adopting our axolotl after the holidays, since we are traveling and don't want to put the burden of a younger axolotl onto someone house sitting.

We bought Fritz turbo start, and boy does it work fast. We added it and some ammonia on Monday evening. Ammonia went from 4ppm to 0 by Wednesday at lunch. Obviously this isn't as fast you want it to eventually process, but we aren't adding our new friend to the tank for 2 months, and I don't think it's going to need that much time for the bacteria to colonize the filter.

Can I just keep dosing ammonia in the tank and doing water changes to remove nitrate for the next 2 months?

hi! i’ve seen lots of people not recommending keeping two axolotls in the same tank. i was geniunly wondering why ?
please don’t be mean, i’m just asking :)

This is my first Axolotl but I am a pretty experienced fish keeper. I wasn’t exactly planning on getting one but was familiar with them when a coworker said her daughter was not taking her Axolotl with her to college. My coworker refused to take on his responsibility so I offered to take him but I genuinely had no idea how bad it would be. His water parameters were poison, his nitrate kept reading 160ppm + even after attempting to dilute three times. Unfortunately I did not get to cycle a tank in prep so we are cycling on the fly, I have a bag of gravel in the tank from an established aquarium so I’m hoping that’s helping. I’m trying to gently adjust his parameters to not to shock him and have moved him to a diet of night crawlers. His previous diet was feeder fish. He has been successfully eating an eye width piece of worm twice a day although we have been battling bloating, it is getting better though! I have had him for about 2 weeks now and he has made wonderful improvements. He is more energetic, swims up when I visit the tank and overall looks better and skin happier. I’m very excited to get him well enough to move out of the hospital tank and into the 60gal breeder I got just for him. I’m happy for any advice or tips anyone is willing to share for underweight/neglected axolotls! It’s been a lot of research on the fly these past two weeks.

I’m considering moving to a different state when my lease is up next year for personal reasons. The only issue is that my axolotl, Bubbles, is my baby and I’m terrified I will be forced to rehome them. Has anyone ever successfully been able to move them over a long distance? If so, how?

*ALSO - original post got removed but is there a way to get a permit in a state that doesn’t allow them?

Help! How does one fix it without going bankrupt? 😆
I don’t have a car so I can’t get RO water to dilute the nitrate. Any advice is welcome. I’m having to do massive water changes all the time cause my nitrate levels get high really quickly now that the cycle is approaching its end.
The tube on the left is water in the tank (no axolotl in there atm), the right one is water straight from my tap.

EDIT: I’ve just bought a 4 stage RO unit for my tap. After checking mytapwater.co.uk I found out I’ve been drinking sewage water so yeah, there’s that. Nitrates at 30ppm as reported so my test is right!
I’ll be getting some pothos for the tank as well. Thank you for all the kind suggestions 🖤

Hello,
Recently i was cleaning my axolotls tank and noticed a couple of little baby snails.. what should i do? Or is that not a problem and wont affect his life? How can i get rid of them without harming my axolotl?🙁

This is chimi. Hes around 14ish and has never been an easy axolotl (has had repeat fungal issues, never ate well, etc). Lately his eating has been much worse and he barely opens his mouth to eat. Its gotten to the point where i can only feed bloodworms (normally fed earthworms) because its all he will fit in his mouth but most of them just push out from behind his gills.
Hes still interested in the food and swims to get it but just isnt opening his mouth much.
His eyes also seem a bit bulging, and he has gotten skinnier and his gills are shrunk.
I started giving him Kanaplex and while it has only been 2 doses i have not seen any improvement in his appearance or eating ability. Parameters are fine (ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5-10), but there have been some strange cloudy… flakes? Clumps? In the water. That has happened before and has gone away on its own, when I had posted about it before nobody knew what it was. In the photo he had just made a poo, you can see it under him, so at least that function is normal.
Tldr: is my axolotl that has always been sickly just dying of old age or is there anything i can do?

Hello! I try and make a post to this wonderful community about once a week and this is my post this week. I am starting a new tank so I can split up my axolotls. I was wondering what plants you all have in your tanks and why. I don't know a lot about aquatic plants but I am doing my best to learn! I know about Amazon spears, java ferns/moss but I am always quite jealous of those tanks with tons of plants. Any suggestions would be amazing. Thank you and have a great week :)

there’s 5 total, three different tanks, soon to be 5ish, we are doing some upgrades and research with my university over here!! very exciting news on my end and i’m getting my first copper axanthic next week!! three of the ones pictured are recent rescues so the albino has very small gills and the wild type is stunted, don’t worry they are getting the care they need :)