What Do Axolotls Eat? A Diet Guide for Australia

The short list

An axolotl is a carnivore that hunts by suction, snapping at anything that moves within reach and drawing it in with a gulp of water. It has tiny teeth used for gripping rather than chewing, so food needs to be soft and small enough to swallow whole. Everything below follows from that.

• Earthworms. The staple. Nutritionally complete, cheap, and readily accepted.
• Soft sinking carnivore pellets. The practical everyday food, especially for keepers who would rather not handle worms.
• Frozen bloodworm. Useful for juveniles and for tempting a reluctant animal, but not a complete diet.
• Blackworm and daphnia. Good for very small juveniles.

Earthworms, the staple

If you feed only one thing, feed earthworms. They are close to a complete diet for an axolotl, high in protein with a good calcium balance, and almost every animal takes them readily.

In Australia, buy composting worms from a worm farm supplier, a garden centre or a bait shop. Do not dig them out of the garden unless you know with certainty that no pesticide, fertiliser or snail bait has been used, which in a typical suburban yard you cannot know. A small worm farm in the laundry is a genuinely economical option if you plan to keep the animal for its full fifteen years.

Chop them for smaller animals. A juvenile under 12 cm will need worms cut into pieces it can actually swallow. Adults take whole worms without trouble.

Pellets

Soft sinking carnivore pellets are what most keepers use day to day, and they are what our animals are raised on, so anything you buy from us will already be eating them. They must sink, because axolotls feed off the bottom and will not chase floating food, and they must be soft, because a hard pellet is difficult to swallow.

Match the pellet size to the animal. A pellet an axolotl cannot get down is a pellet it will spit out, and uneaten food fouls the water. We feed a smaller grade to juveniles and a larger one once they are grown.

Frozen and live foods

Frozen bloodworm is excellent for juveniles and for coaxing a nervous new arrival into feeding, but it is not nutritionally complete enough to be the whole diet. Thaw it in a little tank water first rather than dropping the cube in whole.

Blackworm and daphnia suit very small animals. Brine shrimp are of limited value beyond the larval stage.

What not to feed

This list matters as much as the one above.

• Feeder fish. The most common route for parasites and bacterial infection to enter a tank. Not worth the risk under any circumstances.
• Standard fish flakes. Wrong nutrition, floats, and fouls the water.
• Mammal meat, including beef heart. The fats are not digestible by an amphibian and it causes long term problems.
• Anything hard shelled. Mealworms and similar have chitin exoskeletons an axolotl cannot digest.
• Anything from a wild waterway. Same parasite risk as feeder fish.

How often, and how much

Feeding frequency changes with size, and this is where new keepers most often go wrong in one direction or the other.

• Under 10 cm: daily, sometimes twice daily. Growing animals burn through food.
• 10 to 15 cm: daily or every second day.
• Over 15 cm, adult: every two to three days. Adults do not need daily feeding and will become overweight if given it.

Feed what the animal takes in a few minutes, then remove anything left. Uneaten food is the fastest way to spike ammonia in an otherwise healthy tank.

Judge portion by shape. A well fed axolotl is about as wide as its head, with a gently rounded belly. Noticeably wider than the head means you are overfeeding. Pinched behind the head means underfeeding.

Feeding technique

Adults will hunt food off the bottom themselves. Juveniles, and any of the albino morphs, benefit from target feeding with a pair of aquarium tongs or a turkey baster, holding the food in front of the animal until it snaps.

Target feeding is close to mandatory for albino and golden axolotls, which have very poor eyesight and hunt largely by smell and water movement. Wild types and coppers see normally and will find food without help, which is one reason we suggest them for a first animal.

When an axolotl stops eating

A healthy axolotl that suddenly refuses food is telling you something. Work through this order.

First, temperature. Warm water suppresses appetite before it causes any other visible symptom, and in an Australian summer this is the answer more often than not. Check the water thermometer, not the room.

Second, water quality. Test ammonia and nitrite with a liquid kit. Both should read zero.

Third, stress. A newly arrived animal may not eat for a few days while it settles. That is normal. Leave it alone, keep the lights off and try again the next day.

Fourth, impaction. If the animal has been in a gravel tank, has a swollen firm belly and is not passing waste, it may have swallowed substrate. This needs prompt attention from a vet who sees exotics.

An adult in good condition can go a couple of weeks without food without harm, so there is time to diagnose properly rather than panic. Full symptom list in our axolotl care guide.

Cost

Feeding an axolotl is cheap anywhere in Australia, whether you are in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. A jar of sinking pellets runs $30 to $35 AUD and lasts months. Worms cost a few dollars a tub, or nothing once a worm farm is running. It is by far the smallest ongoing cost of keeping one, well behind electricity for a chiller. See axolotl price Australia for the full cost picture.