The Tank

Spyyk's tank is a two foot by one by one glass unit, with a specially built lid for lighting and filtration. The lighting is an 8 Watt Arcadia Daylight bulb on an Interpet starter, sent to me from a friend as a gift! In my opinion, these are the best bulbs, as they have the right "bandwidth" of light for your plants to be healthy!

Benny, my other axolotl, has a very similar tank (lighting and condensation lid shown here) - but don't forget, not all axolotl like light, so it's best to give them somewhere to escape from it too. Ben spent a week sulking once...

Ben's tank is aerated and filtered by an Interpet PF2, with Venturi system - very effective as you don't need a bubbler then! Economic see, reduce the carbon footprint, use less energy, and less land is needed to provide energy. Save the axolotl, be efficient!

Anyway, both tanks have standard filtration as well as carbon to remove nasty chemicals, and a bacterial centre to deal with waste breaking down (ammonia and nitrites) as well as a good stack of plants to handle organic breakdown of nitrates.

It's not a good photo, but Spyyk likes to sit behind his filter. Lord only knows why...


It WAS floored with a fine, polymer coated black gravel, 4mm and under, as you can see. But axolotl are prone to swallowing pebbles when they eat and potter around, so since then I replaced it with sand, as you can see. It took a while to wash, but it's easier to clean, and he doesn't swallow it - if he does, it comes out just as fast. I was surprised just how many stones had got in his system - they were reappearing for MONTHS!



PTOOEY! Gravel floors don't taste great as a rule...



He has LOTS of different plants at the moment, these provide a more natural environment and, as mentioned, help keep the nitrates down. As it happens, my tap-water is surprisingly high in nitrate, so at the moment I'm fighting with algae too - but more plants will out-compete it!

They have:
Amazon sword
Elodea
Hygrophyla
Water lettuce
Marimo moss
Java moss
Christmas moss
Vallis
Java Fern
and sometimes Indian fern.

The fern is his favourite when it's growing properly - but it can be a pain to cultivate...



He also has a foodbowl, which helps keeps things cleaner. The first picture below is an old one, but it amuses me! It's now on the other side of his tank, with some nice Vallis growing up around it.

It's actually a glass candle holder - but the shape is ideal - his frozen food goes under the "roof", the shorter front side, and then sinks into the main bowl. He can simply walk in, eat lunch without eating floor, and walk back out again! This method has proved incredibly successful with many axolotl, and much easier to control the mess too!





It's also fun to climb on!


They do have beds, somewhere to sleep, play, hide (from me and the light) and sulk - Ben has Spyyk's old resin "log effect" tunnel from Interpets Aquatic Treasure collection, and Spyyk now has a custom-cut length of multi-entrance drain pipe.

They also have a whole array of different stones to amuse them:
Some rather nice Japanese Greens sent by Kev


Some pretty Fire Agate sent by Rose


Some Glass "Icecubes" sent by a nice lady on eBay


And a clear quartz frog I brought back from holiday!