Axolotl Enrichment: Cover, Dim Water, and Meals to Find

A wild axolotl lives in cool canal water among aquatic plants, hides from predators in that cover, and eats whatever it can catch. Good enrichment hands a pet axolotl the same things: cover to choose from, dim and still water, and food it has to find. Cold, clean water at 60 to 64°F and a safe, smooth tank come first, and no amount of enrichment makes up for them.

A Night in the Canals

The axolotl's one remaining wild home is the canal system of Xochimilco in Mexico City, waterways threaded between chinampas, the raised farm plots of the old lake bed. The water there runs about 61 to 68°F (16 to 20°C), and released axolotls moved most at around 61 to 63°F (16 to 17°C).

Axolotls use aquatic plants for cover and for laying eggs, and reintroduced ones favored vegetation by day. They stayed out of a canal stretch covered in dense floating duckweed. They live alone, and they are most active from evening into the night, though not on a strict clock. As the top predator in their water, they eat worms, insect larvae, crustaceans, mollusks and small fish, sucking each one in whole.

Cover to Choose From

Give it at least two hides, and more is better: each one is another covered spot where it can rest and feel safe. Make one of them a tunnel. A laboratory study gave axolotls rocks, plants, plastic shelters, old compact discs and tunnels, and the tunnel was the item they favored most; they even pushed a CD into a position they could shelter under.

Sideways terracotta pots with the drainage hole sealed, wide PVC pipe sections with the edges fully sanded, and smooth resin or ceramic caves all work. Live or silk plants add the cover a wild axolotl looks for. Tie java fern and anubias to decor instead of burying them, and keep marimo moss balls larger than the axolotl's head.

Dim, Still Water

Axolotls have no eyelids and prefer very low light. A few floating plants, never a solid mat, or a dim light give them shade, and if you run a light, a timer keeps it on the same schedule every day. Bright lighting is stress for this species, not enrichment.

They come from still lake and canal water and do poorly in current. Keep the flow minimal, with the filter outflow through a baffle or spray bar.

One research colony bred its axolotls after a cool spell of 53.6 to 57.2°F (12 to 14°C) with about 11 hours of light. That is a breeding trigger in a research colony, not a keeping range.

Meals to Find

A wild axolotl finds and catches every meal, so food is the easiest place to add a little searching. Offer worm pieces from long, blunt tongs, the way research colonies feed them, and move the spot where food appears from meal to meal. To make it search, set a few small pieces in a shallow, empty dish or on a bare patch of floor in a different place each time. Keep food off loose substrate, since an axolotl gulps whatever lies next to its meal.

How to Tell It Is Working

An axolotl that is settled eats the portion it is offered, holds its gills relaxed and out to the sides, rests in or near cover, and comes out when food arrives. Most of its day is spent lying nearly motionless on the bottom, and that is normal for the species. It notices food through its lateral line, the row of pressure-sensing organs along its body, and will snap at a pellet dropped in front of it as it sinks.

Gills curled forward, a lost appetite or floating are signs of stress or illness, often from current, heat or water quality, and those come before any enrichment.

A Layout It Knows, With One Thing New

Keep the hides where they are. Make one change at a time, a few weeks apart: a new plant, a rock larger than the axolotl's head, or an extra tunnel. Run a hand over each new item before it goes in, since anything that scratches skin can injure an axolotl, and watch for a day that a new item has not changed the flow.

One Axolotl Per Tank

One axolotl per tank is the safe default. Tankmates bite at each other's limbs and gills, especially around feeding time or when sizes are mismatched, and a second axolotl adds no enrichment, only risk. Water at 60 to 64°F, held there with a chiller or by cooling the tank without a chiller, comes before any of this.

Priority Order

Cold, clean water and a safe, smooth tank come before everything on this list.

1. At least two smooth hides, one of them a tunnel, plus plant cover
2. Dim light and minimal flow
3. Meals offered from tongs or in changing spots
4. One new smooth item at a time, a few weeks apart

Cover First, Then the Meal

An axolotl spends most of its day still, so the tank does the enriching for it. Give it cover to choose between and food it has to find, and keep the changes small enough that its hides stay where it left them.

Sources & Further Reading