Axolotls, with their distinctive smiling faces and feathery gills, are captivating aquatic pets. While choosing an axolotl morph might be challenging, understanding their dietary needs is surprisingly straightforward. Native to the lakes and wetlands of the Mexican Central Valley, these unique salamanders have a diet that is both varied and adaptable. Axolotls are carnivores, which means their dietary needs center on protein-rich, nutritious food items like worms, insects, and small aquatic creatures.
Natural Feeding Habits of Wild Axolotls
In their natural habitat, axolotls are opportunistic scavengers, consuming anything they can fit into their mouths. They employ a unique feeding technique, rapidly opening their mouths to create a vacuum that sucks in their prey. Wild axolotls are not picky eaters, consuming worms, mollusks, crustaceans, insect larvae, and even small fish. Their diet primarily consists of worms, insects, and insect larvae. During the day, they often burrow into aquatic vegetation and mud for protection, emerging at night to hunt.
Some anecdotal evidence suggests that axolotls may intentionally ingest sand and gravel. One theory proposes that these materials aid in buoyancy control.
Nutritional Needs and Diet for Pet Axolotls
Pet axolotl parents should provide a healthy balance of foods in their axolotl’s diet. Fortunately, feeding your pet a diet similar to what an axolotl may find in the wild is easy. Most axolotl foods are readily available and affordable. Pet axolotls, like their wild cousins, are happy to eat just about anything.
Research indicates that the best axolotl food is low in fat and high in protein. If supplementing with commercial axolotl food pellets, choose soft pellets containing at least 40% protein and less than 10% fat. However, a combination of live and frozen/thawed foods such as brine shrimp, earthworms, and daphnia is ideal.
Read also: Health and Longevity
Recommended Food Options for Axolotls
Here are some excellent food options for axolotls.
Worms
Worms, including earthworms and bloodworms, are an excellent option for rich nutrition and high protein. Earthworms are nutritious and affordable, but it is just fit for subadult and adult axolotls. As for bloodworms, there are live and frozen types. Live bloodworms are less nutritious than other worms. Consequently, you can just feed bloodworms occasionally. Meanwhile, bloodworms are cheap and can be kept frozen, while they may develop fungus. On the other hand, frozen bloodworms provide vitamins and proteins. Nonetheless, they can not meet the nutrition requirements for adult axolotls.
Daphnia
Daphnia, a small crustacean, is one of the best foods for a growing axolotl. Daphnia contains rich proteins and vitamins, which are good for axolotls. It can also remove unwanted bacteria. But daphnia can not be the main food for adult axolotls. Because it can not provide sufficient nutrition, the adult axolotls would get hungry quickly.
Brine Shrimp
Live brine shrimp is nutritious and cheap. Moreover, the live shrimp can be hatched at home. Nevertheless, it would bring disease and change the water’s hardness. Furthermore, live brine shrimp can be frozen. The frozen brine shrimp is only in cube form. So you need to keep it in the water to thaw.
Ghost Shrimp
Ghost shrimp are a nutritious food source, but they can also make sense in cleaning tanks.
Read also: Benefits of Mexican Tea
Pellets
There are two different pellets - smaller pellets and sinking pellets. The former ones are suitable for baby and juvenile axolotls, while the latter ones are ideal for subadult and adult axolotls. And you can get pellets easily! However, pellets are not 100% natural.
Other Options
Axolotls at the San Diego Zoo eat a variety of worms and insects. Small fishes and their fry are likely taken by many newts in the wild, and are a useful food source for captives; their Calcium: Phosphorus ratio is ideal for amphibians. Guppies will thrive and breed, albeit slowly, in room temperature waters if adjusted slowly. Healthy adults generally evade newts, but aged individuals and fry are readily captured.
Foods to Avoid
Insects with hard exoskeletons, such as crickets, waxworms, and hornworms, should be avoided. Some live food should be avoided, feeder fish and mice for example. And you should be cautious about live food, because the live food may carry parasites or disease, which may cause axolotls to get sick. Do not be staggering. The axolotl will eat the fish in one tank exactly, especially small and slow-moving fish. Aside from that, fish also injure your axolotl. Specifically, the axolotl may get choked when it swallows the fish. On the other hand, as fish grow up, they would nip axolotl’s gills. In summary, keeping axolotls and fish in one tank is harmful to each other.
Feeding Frequency and Quantity
Feed axolotls based on size and age. Juvenile axolotls may need feeding once a day, while adult axolotls often eat every other day. Young axolotls eat as often as three times per day, but adults only eat every two to three days.
Figuring out how much food your axolotl needs will take some experimentation. At all ages, pet parents should feed axolotls as much as they can eat in about three to five minutes. You should ensure they finish eating within 1-3 minutes. Their food must be smaller than the width of their head. Anything you feed your axolotl should be smaller than the width of their head. When they’re finished, use a turkey baster to remove leftovers from your axolotl habitat. Once an axolotl is over 7 inches in length, space feedings out further. Adult axolotls over about 7.5 inches only need to eat every two to three days. If an axolotl doesn’t eat everything or still seems hungry, that’s OK. Besides that, as axolotls are more active in the evening than in the daytime, feeding them at night is a better choice.
Read also: Low-Carb Mexican Wedding Cookies
Tank Environment and Considerations
Whether or not pet parents include small gravel or fine sand in an axolotl habitat is somewhat controversial. Small pebbles or gravel sand can cause impactions in their digestive tract. Avoid gravel, as axolotls may accidentally ingest it while eating, risking impaction. Most agree that fine sand and small smooth pebbles are relatively safe for adult axolotls. However, rocks and pebbles should be two times larger than their head to prevent ingestion.
Regarding tank setup, bigger gravel is better. Seeing that fine gravel may be ingested by axolotls, which will cause obstruction. Besides, axolotls do not need special lighting. On the contrary, they always stay at the bottom of the tank and are fond of dark areas. As a result, providing some hiding places is necessary. Moreover, strong currents may make axolotls stressed. Consequently, an aquarium filter with slow currents is suitable for an axolotl tank. A canister filter may meet your demands. It can effectively filter particles and debris, as well as absorb odors. To keep great water quality, you should keep regular water changes. Changing 30-50 percent of the water each week is accepted. Before adding new water, you’d better test the water with the aquarium water test kit. Also, a gravel vacuum can give you a favor. In addition to changing water quickly, the gravel can remove the waste from the tank. Furthermore, lower or higher water temperatures will cause stress, slow metabolism, and loss of appetite.
Additional Considerations
Although an axolotl can come out of the water for short periods, they do not live or eat on land. Feeding an adult axolotl is as easy as dropping food into their aquarium. In contrast, younger axolotls use visual cues to feed, so live food is important. If an axolotl’s food isn’t quite wiggly enough, pet parents can use feeding tongs to wiggle it.
Maintain clean tank conditions and monitor water temperature, as stress from poor water quality can reduce appetite. Without food, axolotls can survive for 2-3 weeks.
Since male axolotls will chase female ones to breed, which is harmful to female axolotls in the long term, therefore, it is better not to keep males and female axolotls in one tank. Meanwhile, it is best not to keep axolotl with other creatures or house two or more axolotls together due to they may fight with each other.
Conservation Status
Axolotls are classified as endangered species. Growing populations of people compete for this freshwater resource, and pollution also contributes to this salamander’s decline. To protect their future, habitat management and restoration are key. Conservationists have begun creating aquatic refuges for axolotls by installing water filters in Lake Xochimilco's canals and excluding non-native species like tilapia. Through conservation education, farmers are increasingly embracing traditional agricultural practices (free of pesticides and fertilizers) to help conserve axolotls.