Project Axolotl

Got the shelves built this morning  as they arrived at 8:30 so had plenty of time 😁 They are really sturdy so will hole the aquariums easily. I'm now waiting for the mats to arrive so that I can start sorting out the aquariums in their new location. I am just clearing off the chrome shelves so that the big rack can be pushed into the corner as the chrome shelves are not staying in my room as they were just temporary until I got some proper shelves. Yesterday I moved the big baby's from individual tubs into larger tubs and put 2 axolotl's per tub as the individual tubs were too much work and were too small for the axolotl's to move much. Yesterday I also put Sam in the big tank with the big axolotl and they seem to be OK together. They have been keeping out of each others way for the most part so it went better than I expected. I have also been checking the little ones in the tank with the minnows and shrimp and they seem to be doing really well. I managed t...

Bought the shelving for the tanks to go on and they should be here tomorrow. Also ordered all of the things that I will need for the tanks as well like filters and heaters and some more hides and the mats to go under the tanks. Everything should be arriving tomorrow so I can get them all in place and set up tomorrow. I have checked on the babies in the tank and they are all fine and eating daphnia which I put in there last night. Also saw some baby shrimp so the water must be ok 😁 I am not getting the stand today as something has come up so I am planning to get it on Wednesday.

I won the tank stand and I am picking it up tomorrow afternoon. It only cost me £5 which is a bargain but it is going to cost me about £30 in petrol plus whatever else it cost me to get it refurbished but its still better than spending £300+ on a stand! The stand need the plastic coating removing and then re-painting and it may also need I am also going to look at a third aquarium that is the same as the other 2 so I will have 3 identical tanks for the aquariums. I am going to buy a set of heavy duty shelves tomorrow and have all of the tanks in the bedroom as it has carpet which will withstand the weight of the tanks. When the rack is sorted I will move 2 of the tanks back into the lounge and use the stand as a low dividing wall between the lounge and dining area which I think will be cool. I can then get 2 slightly bigger tanks for the shelves in the bedroom as they are 160cm wide so a 5ft tank will work really well on them. I will also buy 3 mats for the aquariums to sit o...

I think that we have turned a corner with the big axolotls! Both of them ate pellets today with the big one catching one when it dropped into the tank 🎉🎉🎉🎉 This means that I can start cutting down on the amount of blood worms that I am feeding them and start moving towards pellets as they are more balanced than blood worms. I also need to start introducing worms as well over the next week or so. Unfortunately the big axolotl ate another fish today so I have moved the last one back into the smaller tank for its own safety. That explains why the axolotl was chilling on the rock when I got home today 🤦‍♂️ I have also moved the big babies into seperate containers so that they can't eat each other. I haven't seen any evidence of them trying to eat each other but I just wanted to make sure. They all seem pretty happy at the moment eating their baby brine shrimp so I will leave them like that for a while. I won the stand for the big aquarium tonight so hopefull...

Got the new heater today for the big tank. It goes down to 16 degrees so I have set it to 16 degrees for the moment to see how it goes. All the axolotl's are growing well. I have just noticed that the big babies have their front legs already so will have to be seperated soon as they will start to eat each other if not seperated. The big axolotl seems really happy in the big tank and was happy to come and be fed with the tweezers from his bowl today. We have decided that we don't like the name Link so it is back to the big axolotl until we can decide on a decent name 😂 Sam is growing well and we like it's name so that is staying. I am thinking that Sam needs to move into the bigger draws as it is getting too big for its current tubs and the draws are bigger. I am hoping to get a stand for the big tanks so that I can get both tanks setup and Sam will be able to move into the second tank soon but for now the draws will be an upgrade. I decided to take the 2 babi...

The tank heater is working but it is working too well 😭 The water is consistently at 20 degrees at the moment so will not work with the axolotl's. I have been thinking about the big tank and I don't think that it is a good idea to put sand in it now as it will make the tank way heavier and I am not sure that the table it is on will like the increased weight and I am definitely sure that I will not like moving the tank plus sand plus some water when I do get the stand after Xmas. I have decided that for now I am going to put the minnows in the tank and that's it for now so that they can speed up the cycling of the filters while the big axolotl will be ok to go in the tank after Xmas. We are off to pickup the other tank this afternoon as well but I am going to store this tank until I get the stand then it will be ready once the babies are bigger. I have checked on the babies in the tank and they are getting bigger and I can see they have food in their bellies so I ...

Had a bad night in the tanks last night! Lost 2 shrimp and one of the baby axolotls that were put in yesterday. Haven't see the other 2 today either so I am hoping that they are just hiding. Also the baby in the egg has died too as the egg has gone cloudy and and the axolotl was not moving any more and it's eyes were dark 😭 I gave it a burial at sea along with the rest of the dead. I have just done the water changes and feeding and the big babies have grown noticeably again since yesterday! It is amazing how quickly they are growing. On a more positive note I have found and am bidding on a proper stand for my big tank which I am winning at the moment at £5 and it is near one of the BMX tracks that I need to practice on so I can kill 2 birds with one stone. It's in pretty bad shape but I am happy to take it to be powder coated and it means that I can get it made to look brand new at the powder coaters that I take my bike frames to. I also want to get the lid done ...

At the moment I have 3 fish tanks of varying sizes that I bought with the axolotl's in mind. The first one I bought was initially going to be for the big axolotl (I have to start naming the big ones soon!) But after keeping it in there for a week I decided to get the minnows which was a very bad idea as one of the minnows became axolotl food on the first night they were together. I then had to tub the axolotl again so I bought gravel and some drift wood and added some ornaments and some red cherry shrimp and it is now the tank that the 3 babies have gone into. The next tank I bought was a smaller 20l tank as it was on sale and I thought that it would be ok for the smaller copper axolotl but when I got it home it just looked too small so I changed it to be a Betta tank and last weekend be bought our Betta George! George is super happy in this tank so I am going to leave him as he is. He did eat the shrimp that were in there with him so I guess they are...

Going to start doing weekly updates on all of the babies every Saturday so that I can see how they are progressing. Here is my biggest axolotl who is now called link 😁 is just over 5" now, has grown probably 2 inches since it got here and is eating really well and getting really tame. I can out my finger in the water now and it comes over to get it's nose tickled. My next biggest axolotl who is now called Sam is  getting bigger (just over 3") only eating about 6 blood worms a day but is growing nicely so I'm happy. This one is also getting noticeably tamer but is still a bit jittery. This one has grown maybe 1 cm in the past couple weeks but is starting to eat better so I expect it to start really growing soon. It is also filling out nicely and it's legs have now fully formed and are getting thicker all the time. The next biggest babies are kept in my 3 draw A4 cabinet and they have practically doubled in size in the last week. They seem to grow on a ...

I have decided to do a little experiment with a few of my babies. I have 3 babies that survived when all the older babies died last weekend and these 3 are doing well. I decide I wanted to see how they get on growing in an established aquarium while they grow as keeping the 3 of them in a separate tub is a lot of work and I don't want to mix them in with the rest of the babies. Here are my 3 test subjects.  They are currently eating and are getting drip fed some of the water from the aquarium to get used to the water before they go in. The aquarium is my 25 litre shrimp tank that also has 3 white cloud mountain minnows in there too. My thinking is that there is nothing in this tank that should eat the baby axolotls and when the shrimp have babies the axolotl's can eat them. I just thought that it would be good to see how much slower or faster the babies develop in the aquarium compared to the other babies that are seperate and kept in tubs. Here is a photo of the ...

Here are a list of the tubs and tanks that I am using with my axolotls: TUBS: Three Drawer Chest Silver Rectangular Food Box (4.0L) . 3 Tier A4 Drawer Unit Rectangular 1000ml Microwave Clear Plastic Containers

Welcome to my Project Axolotl page. I intend to use it to document my new hobby of Axolotl keeping. Basically about a month and a half ago I was trawling the internet and stumbled across a video about raising axolotls from eggs to adults and remembered how I had always loved the axolotls that  my school had and thought that it would be cool to get one for my son. I had a chat with my son and he loved the idea of getting some axolotl eggs and raising them from eggs. Fast forward to now and we currently have 2 Juvenile axolotls and about 30 baby axolotls ranging from 3 weeks old to a few days old and one still in an egg!!!! Until last weekend we had 45 babies but we lost about 15 when one of the tubs that I was keeping them in somehow got contaminated and they all dies in the space of a day :-( before this we had only lost 2 babies in 3 weeks. Unfortunately the majority of the babies that died were the largest ones we had and they were growing so quickly. Never mind. After thro...