Project Axolotl

I bought a new tub for the bigger juvenile axolotls so that they are all in the same tub now. This makes it much easier for water changes and feeding. They all seem happy in the new tub. I have left the smaller axolotls in a separate tub for now to make sure that they can get enough food and are not picked on or eaten. They are significantly smaller still that the others even though they hatched less than a week apart. The bigger axolotls are all fine and seem to be happy in their new tanks. I am waiting for the other 3 to get to the size of big boy and then he/she will go in the same tank until I am able to sex them. At which time I will have to get a second big tank to separate the males from the females. This if a good 5-6 months off I think but I am looking out now for a suitable second hand tank. I also got the small tank out of my bedroom and into the lounge and I am in the process of moving the snails that are left in it into the beta tank so that I can get the gr...

The led light arrived for the fish tank today and it makes the tank look much better. It has 2 settings, blue and blue and white: The fish seem to like it and it makes the tank look much better. I moved the 4 juvenile's out of their aquarium and into a large tub today as well so that I can empty out the tanks ready to move them into the lounge and take the shelves out of my room into the lounge as they will have to be taken apart as they are too large to fit through the door in one piece. I plan to start sorting the lounge when I wake up in the morning ready to move the shelves tomorrow too. Then I can start sorting my room out as a room/gym. I bought some foam flooring to put under the shelves to stop them marking the floor and also to stop any water that spills hitting the wood floor.

Everyone in the big tank seems to be happy now. Pinky has started to come out and socialize with the other 2 axolotl's which is great and all 3 are happy. I am going to get the shelves moved into the lounge today and then set up all of the tanks properly and then start moving the juveniles into the empty tank. Some of them ate getting really big now. I also have to move the Betta into the slightly bigger tank as well. I also found out yesterday that the water conditioner that I have been using is harmful to axolotls as it has iodine in it aparently. I have bought some Seachem Prime water conditioner to change the water to as it is supposed to be the best for axolotls. It will arrive today so I will start doing the water changes to get rid of the other conditioner slowly. 4.9

Got up and went to the pet shop when it opened and set up the other tank and bought some neons for the bottom tank. The lady in the pet shop pointed out that the minnows need temporate water and all the other fish I want need warmer water so I had to move the minnows out of the bottom tank and into the small tank with the shrimp in temporarily. We then put the neons in the bottom tank and set up the top tank for the three medium sized axolotl's and moved them. At the moment pinky and the brain are scared of Sam and are hiding behind one of the filters so the tank is pretty empty looking. Also all 3 are pretty small at the moment too but once they get bigger it will get fuller. I also moved the juveniles from the tank with the shrimp into pinky and the brains tank as it is bigger and doesn't have gravel in it. I also moved the shrimp out of the tank into the bottom tank with the neons as it was a bit crowded with all the minnows in it. I am now in the pro...

I have been really busy this evening. I have washed 4 bags of gravel and then moved the water from one tank into the other tank and moved the fish and ornaments over to the other tank. The fish are now in their new home and seem pretty at home there. I then emptied out the dirty water in the other tank and put it on top of the fish tank. The tank was a bit wobbly so I put some foam under it so that it was stable and then put all the water in it that I had left. Unfortunately I ran out of water conditioner so I will have to wait until tomorrow to move the axolotl's into the top tank. We have decided that the top tank looks better without its lid so we are going to leave it without. Also the lid is really tatty so it looks really bad. When I get paid next week I will get some lids made out of glass as the plastic condensation trays don't fit properly and also look really cheap too (which they were!). As soon as the bigger axolotls are in their new t...

Just waiting for the gravel to be delivered and then I can get the fish aquarium sorted ready to move the other big tank into the lounge as well. I am going to leave big boy a smaller tank for now and move Sam, pinky and the brain into the big aquarium as they are all a similar size to each other. This will also free up 2 of the 2ft tanks to move the 4 juvenile's from the tank with the shrimp into a bigger tank and then leave another 2 ft tank for the other larger juveniles that are in the under bed storage at the moment and then I can move the smaller juveniles into the under bed storage bin or into the aquarium with the shrimps. Either way they will be more organised and all in one place. I am thinking that I may move the shrimp into the big tank with the fish and then move the Betta and the snails  into the shrimp tank and then I can use the Betta tank for daphnia. The good thing is that once the big tank iso monto its stand there will be enough space to have all of the ...

Got the under gravel filter today and I have just added the gravel that arrived yesterday. Unfortunately I really underestimated the amount of gravel needed so have had to order 4 more bags of 5kgs 🤦‍♂️ The rest of the gravel will arrive tomorrow so I will wash it and put it in the aquarium as soon as it arrives tomorrow so that I can get it set up to move the fish into it tomorrow night or Sunday Nd get the rest of the tanks moved around and sorted Sunday. This will mean that Monday morning I can get to IKEA to buy a proper bed and mattress and get my bedroom sorted as a bedroom and stop sleeping in the lounge as I have been for the past month or so. I think the tank is going to look good once it is done. The gravel is darker than I was planning but I kind of like it and it will hopefully make the minnows stand out a bit as they are very light colours so are hard to see. Apparently with an under gravel filter it is better to have too much gravel rather than too little so...

Got home from work to find another one of the babies had died unfortunately. The others all look well and have been eating daphnia and small blood worms so think they are ok. The 4 big axolotls are doing well and are all eating worms now so that is making feeding them easier. The gravel for the fish tank is arriving today along with a valve system to get all the aquarium on one pump which will be good. Waiting on the under gravel filter which was supposed to arrive yesterday but has been delayed aparently. I am on holiday for the next 12 days so I want to get everything moved about so that I can have all axolotls and fish in the lounge and get my bedroom back. This will mean dismantling the shelves again and moving everything into the lounge but it will be worth it. I am also going to move the Betta into the same tank as the minnows to see how they get along together which will mean that I can free up another tank that I was going to use for daphnia if all goes to plan. ...

Had more Daphnia arrive today and I have loaded up all of the tubs so the juvenile axolotls will be happy for a bit. I am slowly stopping with the BBS for now and going to go with daphnia for a bit as it is less hassle. I have out 2 tubes of daphnia in my daphnia tub to see if they grow in there or not. I haven't had much luck until now but you never know. I have also bought 3 tubes of small live blood worms to get them used to the blood worms so that they can transition from daphnia to blood worms soon and then onto frozen blood worm as soon as possible. Pinky and the brain also ate pellets today so I can start moving them onto these too as they are eating so much frozen blood worm it is not funny. Unfortunately I have been spoiling them by feeding with tweezers so now they are too good to eat out of their bowl 😭🤦‍♂️🤣 I am going to hold off until the end of the week to move the fish into the new tank as I am waiting on an under gravel filter and gravel to arrive before ...

Got the big aquarium cleaned really well this morning. I used bartender's friend and a razor blade as explained on you tube and it worked amazingly well. Got it into the stand ready to set up tonight or tomorrow morning to move the white mountain cloud minnows from the big tank in my bedroom into the new aquarium. I am pretty happy with how it is going to look in the rack and the position of the rack in the room too. The photos also show the before and after of the aquarium with and without water marks. At the moment big boy is quite happy in his/her new smaller tank so it can stay there for a while and I will let the big aquarium cycle again before moving it back into the big aquarium where it will stay from now on.  I am going to keep the water level a bit lower as if is easier to feed when the level is lower. 

I had to move big boy into a smaller tank for now as I have 25 white cloud mountain minnows arriving today so I need the big tank for them.  Big Boy seems happy in the new tanks and I have cleaned the big tank and moved the 2 minnows from the smaller tank with the baby axolotls in to the big tank waiting for the other 25 to arrive. The young axolotls seem a bit happier now the minnows have gone as well so its a win win. I also received a call to say that the tank stand is now ready to pick up so I can go and pick it up tomorrow early so that I can start organizing the big aquariums finally :-) I will also clean the other big tank tomorrow before it goes on the stand. The stand has been delivered by my parents parents this afternoon and it looks amazing.

All the babies are doing really well and the big ones are growing like weeds :-) Pinky and the Brain are settling in nicely and are now eating from the tweezers where as they would swim away and hide before. Sam and Big Boy are tucking into worms since I started cutting them up into smaller pieces and also pellets and frozen blood worms. I noticed today just how big big boy is getting. He/She is probably about twice as big as when it arrived which is a good sign.

The new stuff I ordered arrived yesterday. I also went to pets at home and bought some fake plants for the 2 new tanks and also 2 food bowls. I set up the first of the 2  Hobby Artemia Breeders last night. I bought them to see if they work as they require no air lines or external lights so the electric bill will go down a lot as my other hatchery has the airline and light running 24/7 so is very wasteful. I also bought one more of the 60x30x30 aquariums to out the big axolotl (now called big boy until it turns out to be a girl 😂) in as I am liking the depth of the tank for cleanup and feeding.  I am now going to use the big tanks as fish tanks for now or at least one of them and maybe use the other one for axolotls but keep the water levels lower. I am also not liking all of the wood and rocks in big boys tank as it also makes cleaning and feeding difficult. I will put the rocks and wood in with the fish as they don't need so much cleaning up after or feeding by hand....

It's been a busy morning already. My birthday axolotl's arrived a day early but I will take it 😁 Also the snails for the Betta tank arrived at the same time and also the small live blood worms also arrived. I can not believe how big the bigger babies have got over night in the big tub. They have doubled in size it seems like. Unfortunately one of them has also died which is sad. I have also set up the second new aquarium ready to move the big axolotl into temporarily while I get the shelves sorted and move his 4ft aquarium into the lounge once the rack is painted. Looking at the 2 new axolotl's they are about the same size as Sam so my plans may change a bit as I think that the big axolotl is too big at the moment to live with the new ones so Sam may have to live with them instead. I have bought a new 2 story slate hide which arrived yesterday and is now in the new tank waiting for the big axolotl to move in. The two new axolotl's are in their tub and are now...

All good with the axolotl's today. The big axolotl ate 4 worms and a few pellets and Sam ate a few pellets and a bunch of blood worms so they both seem happier in separate tanks. I used another 3 packets of daphnia and put one and a half in the aquarium with the 4 big babies in and then split the rest between the 4 draws with the rest of the babies in. The bigger babies now have fully formed front legs and feet and the back legs are budding nicely. The smaller ones that were born a couple of weeks later are all getting their front legs at the moment. The bigger ones are now about 3-5 cm long where as the smaller ones are between 2 and 3 cm. All seem to be eating the daphnia well and all are growing noticeably on a daily basis. They also seem to be happier split into pairs than they were when they were all together. I continued stripping the rack for the big aquarium's and have got to a point where the stuff that is left is really stuck on and doesn't want to come of...

Woke up this morning and decided to strip the plastic off of the shelves ready to paint them. Half the plastic came off easily the rest is proving to be a bit more difficult 😂 I am going to get as much off as I can and then email the powercoaters and get it dropped off to them next week. The cleaning stuff for the aquarium hasn't arrived yet either although I have a mre specific time window today so it may arrive. I have already fed all the axolotl's and unfortunately one of the small babies was dead this morning but it happens and all the others seem fine and are eating really well. The big axolotl ate a worm again today so happy with that as worms are much easier than the pellets as it eats the worm as soon as the tweazers hit the water which is a good sign. The cleaning stuff and an ATAT tank ornament arrived today so I can clean the second tank tomorrow ready to set it up once the stand is finished. The air line splitters also arrived today but they weren...

Sam's new aquarium arrived today. It is 60cm X 30cm X 30cm and is the ideal size for Sam at the moment. I have set it up without a filter for now and will get it set up properly once I have some splitters for the air pump. Sam is actually in the tank but is hidden behind the rock at the back. I think that Sam will be happy in this tank for a while yet. I have decided to set up the other 2ft tank that arrived today up for the little axolotls that are in the tank with the fish and shrimp at the moment as the fish keep eating the daphnia that I am putting into the tank for the axolotl's. There is no rush to get this done so I will take my time with it. I also tested the fit of the big tanks in the rack that I picked up on Wednesday and it fits perfectly! Once I am off shift on Tuesday I will strip the frame down and take it to be powder coated black. Unfortunately Amazon let me down with the delivery of the cleaning product so I can not get the tank clean yet...

I bit the bullet this morning and bought 2x 2ft tanks as Sam had been hiding all the time in the big tanks so I was unable to feed. I couldn't let this continue as I don't think Sam was happy due to the bigger axolotl always chasing it. At least with a 2ft tank Sam can be happy in its own tank until the babies get big enough to go in with it. For the time being I have filled up one of the under bed storage tubs up and have moved Sam into it and have been feeding as much as the axolotl will eat. The big axolotl is eating really well so will be fine in the big tank. The java balls and a new big bucket arrived today. The butcher is filled up already with 20l of water and water container so when the new tanks arrive tomorrow I will be able to clean it and fill it up with the water ready to move Sam into it. I bought a bunch of sponge filters that arrived yesterday as well so I am going to move one of the filters from the big tank into Sam's tank and replace it wit...

It almost killed me but I got the tank moved onto the new shelves. I had to put the tank on the lower shelf as it was too heavy half filled with water to go on the upper shelf where I wanted it. It is a bit dark on the lower shelf to see the axolotls very well and the gap between shelves is a little narrow for my liking. I plan to change this so that only 2 tanks will fit in the shelves and I plan to get 2 X 5ft by 2ft by 2ft aquariums later in the year to go on the shelves once there 2 tanks are back in the lounge on their stand. Talking of the stand I drove and got it this morning and it is as rough as advertised so I will definitely have to strip it and paint it. I have sent an email to the paint shop to find out how much it will be to get it sand blasted and painted. If I can get it for less than £65 I will be happy as the stand will have only cost my £100 in total which will be a  £200 + saving on getting a new one so well worth it.