How often do you need to feed your adult Axolotl? And how often do you feed newly hatched axolotls?
How often you need to feed your axolotl depends on their life stage, young axolotls need to be fed a lot more often than adults.
Baby Axolotls need live food about 3 times a day, as your Axolotl grows larger you can slowly get them used to pellets and don’t need to feed them as often. As a rule of thumb, you should feed adult axolotls every 2 to 3 days.
What and how often should you feed your axolotl?
| Size | How often? | Food | |
| Baby | around 1 inch (smaller than 2,5 cm) | 3 times a day | Daphnia* Small Brine Shrimps* |
| Larvae | between 1 to 3 inches (2,5 and 8 cm) | 2 times a day | Brine Shrimps* Mosquito larvae |
| Juvenile | between 3 and 7,5 inches (8 and 20 cm) | 2 times a day, with increasing size once per day | Pellets* Earthworms* |
| Adult | from 7,5 inches (from 20 cm) | 2 to 3 times a week | Pellets Earthworms |
Axolotls are purely carnivorous animals and eat only meat, they prefer food that is high in protein and low in fat.
Young axolotls need to be fed with live food, since their sense of smell isn’t well developed yet, they mainly react to the movement of the prey. Immediately after hatching they feed on their yolk sac for 24 to 72 hours, after which you can offer them their first food.
Suitable live foods for young or newly hatched axolotls, are:
– Daphnia
– small Brine Shrimps
– white and red mosquito larvae
Juvenile Axolotls can then be slowly introduced to pellet food. Many axolotl owners have also had very good experiences with feeding earthworms, these contain all the important nutrients that axolotls need.
Good live foods for adolescent and adult axolotls are:
– Earthworms
– Axolotl pellets
Daphnia
Daphnia, also called water fleas, are crustaceans that grow to 2 to 5 mm in size, depending on the species. Due to their chitinous shell they have a high fiber content and their small size makes them ideal food for newly hatched axolotls.
Daphnia can also be easily bred at home, here are instructions for doing so.
(Small) Brine shrimp
Artemia, also called brine shrimp, belong to the crustaceans and are especially suitable as live food for young axolotls. Due to their chitin they are rich in fiber and although living in salt water, they don’t have an increased salt content in their body, which could be dangerous for axolotls. Also, like daphnia, their movement triggers the axolotl’s eating reflex, making feeding them easier.
Immediately after hatching, Artemia are called “nauplii” and are particularly rich in nutrients. Artemia can also be bred at home without much effort, click here for an article on the instructions.
White and red mosquito larvae
White mosquito larvae are the larvae of the Chaoboridae mosquitos, also known as phantom midges or glassworms, red ones are the larvae of the Chironomidae, also called lake flies. They consist of a lot of protein and very little fat. This makes them an excellent choice for feeding young axolotls.
Earthworms
There are many different types of earthworms, but for feeding axolotls, dendrobaena, or fishing worms, are most commonly used.
Earthworms contain all the nutrients that axolotls need and you can feed them if the Axolotl are 3 inches (8cm) or larger. In case the worm is still too big, you can cut it into smaller pieces.
Before feeding your Axolotl with the worms, you should first rinse them with water so that no dirt is introduced into the aquarium. Earthworms can also be easily bred at home in a small worm farm, click here for instructions.
Axolotl Pellets
The easiest and often most practical way to feed Axolotl is with pellet food. You should make sure that they are extra pellets for Axolotl, because pellets for fish or other aquatic animals can also contain plant material that Axolotl can’t digest.
In general you should make sure that your Axolotl gets a different food.
Click here for an article with all food options for Axolotl.
How many pellets should you feed your axolotl?
For adult Axolotls you can calculate with about 3 to 6 pellets per Axolotl. You can orient yourself on the appearance of your Axolotl, if it looks too thin, you can feed more.
On the other hand, if you notice that he is getting larger, you can reduce the amount of food for a while.
You can either let the pellets sink to the bottom of the tank or offer them to the axolotl with tweezers. Everything that isn’t eaten after one hour should be removed from the aquarium so that it doesn’t pollute the water quality.
With live food, such as mosquito larvae or daphnia, you can follow the rule of thumb that you let the Axolotl eat for 3 minutes and then remove the remains.
How do you feed an Axolotl?
For young axolotls, it can be helpful to place them in a shallow dish with less water to feed them more easily.
Live food such as mosquito larvae, Brine shrimp and Daphnia can then be placed directly in front of their mouth of the Axolotl, so that they can eat them directly. You can use a turkey frying syringe* for this.
Food that is easy to grab like earthworms or pellets can be fed with long tweezers* by holding the food in front of the axolotl’s mouth or dropping it there.
What is the best time to feed your axolotl?
The best time to feed your axolotl is in the afternoon or evening. Axolotls are naturally nocturnal or crepuscular and will be hungriest during this time.
How long can axolotls survive without food?
For the most part, adult axolotls can go up to 2 weeks without food, though if the axolotl is sick or weakened, this time may be shorter. Likewise, young and growing axolotls can’t survive 2 weeks without food, as they need nutrition more frequently.
Conclusion
Young axolotls still need to be fed several times a day, whereas adults only need to be fed every 2 to 3 per week. Axolotls require a high protein, low fat meat based diet which is best achieved with a mix of Axolotl Pellet and live food.