Discussion
Thought my Axolotls deserved their own thread!
A few month's back my OH decided we needed some low maintenance pets, and having had fish in the past, and a tarantula when I was younger, we decided on something a bit different, so we ended up buying some Axolotls. When we received them they were about an inch long. One of them was white with pink gills, and the other was slightly larger and the same colour with a few black specks on his head. One arrived with one leg after a rough postal journey, which he quickly regenerated. This regenerative ability has lead to a lot of scientific study into animals, as they are iirc, the only vertebrate that can grow entire new limbs after one is removed. We could not think of names for a while, but decided on Mulder and Scully as we were (and still are) working our way through every episode of The X Files.
We bought a 60L tank for them to start with, which they quickly outgrew. Growing at about an inch a month since we got them in June, they needed more space within a short amount of time, so we bought them a 140L tank instead. It's never more than 45% filled with water, as Axolotls aren't really swimmers, it's more about floor space and stuff to climb on that they care about. Unfortunately, having the tank only half full meant the frankly poor filter designed for the tank has never worked amazingly - it's designed to work with the water level near the top of the tank. It draws from the bottom, but inputs the water from a chute at the top - this is not a problem when the tank is full, but only being half full it gathers pace as it falls and splashes noisily. It was driving me nuts, so in true PH fashion, I made my own silencer; a funnel filled with cut-up bathroom sponge collects the water just underneath the chute, the sponge functioning as a baffle to soak up the noise. As the water flows slowly down the funnel, it passes into a silicon tube and under the water's surface, and is near inaudible when functioning correctly. The bottom of the tank is covered with black artificial sand; some people keep Axolotls on gravel but this is very dangerous as they can swallow the stones and die. For substrate, a fine sand is best (causes them no harm if they accidentally ingest it) or just the bare glass of the bottom of the tank is fine.
They prefer the dark, so we have blacked out 3 sides of their tank, and they prefer their water cold, despite living in Mexico in the wild. We had intended on feeding them on bloodworms which are cheap and readily available, but they would not eat them, so we took to feeding them garden worms, only to find they didn't really like the most common worms in our garden. Through the winter, we have been feeding them on a larger species of worm called Giant Lob worms, purchased through Ebay - they go absolutely wild for these worms as they like their food to put up a bit of a fight.
We are moving house soon, and moving the axolotls will prove a bit of a challenge, but we have a plan in place to minimise stress for them. They will be getting pride of place in our dining room, and again in true PH fashion I have got a few upgrades in mind (new air filter, stainless steel exhaust...), namely a better in-tank filter as opposed to the out-board one it has currently, though tbh noise from the filter is less of a concern going forward as I won't be keeping them in our bedroom any more.
Anyway, now would be a good time for some photos!
This is one just after we got them, about 1" long here
Here is one side on, you can see how translucent they are when they are young
And this is about how they look now - no longer translucent, and the one with black markings on his head has developed some strong black pigmentation across his head and back. They are about 5" here.
I don't have any very recent photos, they are about 6.5" long now, and getting very fat now. As they get older, they will swim less and less. They found swimming easy when they were little, but as they are now larger, and fatter, and will only continue to grow they will become more static. Their little legs can only paddle them through the water slowly, and while they can give a burst of speed with their (///M power) tails, they tend not to bother.
A few month's back my OH decided we needed some low maintenance pets, and having had fish in the past, and a tarantula when I was younger, we decided on something a bit different, so we ended up buying some Axolotls. When we received them they were about an inch long. One of them was white with pink gills, and the other was slightly larger and the same colour with a few black specks on his head. One arrived with one leg after a rough postal journey, which he quickly regenerated. This regenerative ability has lead to a lot of scientific study into animals, as they are iirc, the only vertebrate that can grow entire new limbs after one is removed. We could not think of names for a while, but decided on Mulder and Scully as we were (and still are) working our way through every episode of The X Files.
We bought a 60L tank for them to start with, which they quickly outgrew. Growing at about an inch a month since we got them in June, they needed more space within a short amount of time, so we bought them a 140L tank instead. It's never more than 45% filled with water, as Axolotls aren't really swimmers, it's more about floor space and stuff to climb on that they care about. Unfortunately, having the tank only half full meant the frankly poor filter designed for the tank has never worked amazingly - it's designed to work with the water level near the top of the tank. It draws from the bottom, but inputs the water from a chute at the top - this is not a problem when the tank is full, but only being half full it gathers pace as it falls and splashes noisily. It was driving me nuts, so in true PH fashion, I made my own silencer; a funnel filled with cut-up bathroom sponge collects the water just underneath the chute, the sponge functioning as a baffle to soak up the noise. As the water flows slowly down the funnel, it passes into a silicon tube and under the water's surface, and is near inaudible when functioning correctly. The bottom of the tank is covered with black artificial sand; some people keep Axolotls on gravel but this is very dangerous as they can swallow the stones and die. For substrate, a fine sand is best (causes them no harm if they accidentally ingest it) or just the bare glass of the bottom of the tank is fine.
They prefer the dark, so we have blacked out 3 sides of their tank, and they prefer their water cold, despite living in Mexico in the wild. We had intended on feeding them on bloodworms which are cheap and readily available, but they would not eat them, so we took to feeding them garden worms, only to find they didn't really like the most common worms in our garden. Through the winter, we have been feeding them on a larger species of worm called Giant Lob worms, purchased through Ebay - they go absolutely wild for these worms as they like their food to put up a bit of a fight.
We are moving house soon, and moving the axolotls will prove a bit of a challenge, but we have a plan in place to minimise stress for them. They will be getting pride of place in our dining room, and again in true PH fashion I have got a few upgrades in mind (new air filter, stainless steel exhaust...), namely a better in-tank filter as opposed to the out-board one it has currently, though tbh noise from the filter is less of a concern going forward as I won't be keeping them in our bedroom any more.
Anyway, now would be a good time for some photos!
This is one just after we got them, about 1" long here
Here is one side on, you can see how translucent they are when they are young
And this is about how they look now - no longer translucent, and the one with black markings on his head has developed some strong black pigmentation across his head and back. They are about 5" here.
I don't have any very recent photos, they are about 6.5" long now, and getting very fat now. As they get older, they will swim less and less. They found swimming easy when they were little, but as they are now larger, and fatter, and will only continue to grow they will become more static. Their little legs can only paddle them through the water slowly, and while they can give a burst of speed with their (///M power) tails, they tend not to bother.
We had one in the biology lab at school (he was called Aristotle of course). They are the pre-adult - forget the technical word, larval perhaps - of the adult, hence the regenerative ability. Add something to the water - iodine? - and they turn into adults and then the regenerative ability, I guess akin to stem cells, is lost.
"Neoteny" is the word you are looking for, they reach sexual maturity and can maintain their juvenile form until later life. You can cause them to metamorphose by adding chemicals to their water, but that's really nothing short of animal cruelty. Some people force their axolotls to undergo the change into full adults by weaning them out of water and eventually forcing them to live on dry land. Axolotls that suffer unnecessary stress in their tanks can end up metamorphosing too - it's reserved like a survival mechanism to help them get through situations that would otherwise kill them. Left to their own devices, they will happily live and die in their aquatic form.
It's similar to how many lizards can cast their tail off to help them escape a predator. You could do it a pet lizard if you aggravated it enough, but much like forcing an Axolotl to metamorphose, you wouldn't do it unless you were a total git.
It's similar to how many lizards can cast their tail off to help them escape a predator. You could do it a pet lizard if you aggravated it enough, but much like forcing an Axolotl to metamorphose, you wouldn't do it unless you were a total git.
In normal circumstances, Axolotls will live in water, they retain their juvenile characteristics (gills, living in water, soft skin) and become sexually mature, and able to reproduce, known as "neoteny". If they are faced with environmental stress, such as chemical pollutants entering their habitat, or their pond drying up, they can migrate to land - this rarely happens, they usually just die, amphibians are not terribly robust. Their gills atrophy and drop off, their skins changes colour and becomes thicker. They become an adult, and look like most other Salamanders, but unlike other Salamanders (which will always naturally undergo the change to full adulthood) Axolotls have to be placed under extreme stress to force the change, which as I mentioned earlier, is just animal cruelty and not something a conscientious pet owner should ever consider!
EDIT:
Here are some photos of adult Axolotls that live at Northumbria University
These ones are about a foot long, but they are pretty old and very well fed!
EDIT:
Here are some photos of adult Axolotls that live at Northumbria University
These ones are about a foot long, but they are pretty old and very well fed!
Edited by Mastodon2 on Thursday 12th January 22:04
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