How Much & How Often Do I Feed My Axolotls?

You’ve probably already read somewhere that axolotls don’t need that much food to survive. Another problem is overfeeding, which can easily be caused. And overfeeding will cause various digestive problems, which can potentially even harm your axolotl, and cause impaction.

The best way to feed axolotls is every 2-3 days. This is the optimal time, and you will want to be moderate in the amounts of food you feed them, too. This is a good time frame since you will prevent overfeeding this way, and you will also keep them from being hungry.

Axolotls are actually quite adaptable in terms of food and will survive more than 3 days without food comfortably, and beyond that. However, you need to find a good balance of how frequently you feed them, and how much you feed them.

And even when you feed them every 2-3 days, you should only feed them as much as they can eat in roughly three minutes. That means an earthworm or a couple of them for every meal should suffice.

In this article, you’ll learn how much and how often you should feed your axolotls, and what you should keep in mind if you feed them.

How Much to Feed Your Axolotl?

As we’ve already noted, you should feed your axolotl every 2-3 days. Many new owners are surprised to learn about this number, asking: “Won’t they get hungry?”

I can assure you that no, they won’t get hungry if you feed them at this frequency. In some cases, you might even need to tone it down, because axolotls take quite a lot of time to digest the food they eat, so it takes some time for them to recover for the next meal.

For every meal, you should only feed them as much as they can eat in 1-3 minutes. This varies from animal to animal, and it also depends on their size and age.

Older, adult axolotls will consume an entire earthworm in this time period. However, younger axolotls will normally consume much less in 1-3 minutes. It can be half a earthworm or even a small portion of other types of food.

You should make sure you tailor this diet to your axolotl, though. If you wish to learn how much your axolotl will eat, then you need to try it out how much they will eat in 1-3 minutes.

How Long Can Axolotls Go Without Feeding?

Axolotls are quite adaptable with their food. They will survive up to 3 weeks without eating. However, in some cases, they might only survive 2 weeks, while other axolotls can survive slightly longer than 3 weeks.

However, you should not try to test their limits! Yes, they are adaptable and hardy in this sense, but you should still keep feeding them at an optimal rate we discussed above.

It’s very important that you keep a good balance with the diet, too. Let’s discuss more about this now in the next chapter.

Things to Consider when Feeding Your Axolotl

Here are some key things to consider when feeding your axolotl.

Don’t Overfeed

One of the most important things is to not overfeed your axolotl. This can happen very easily. As you can see, you only need to feed them every 2-3 days roughly. However, some new axolotl owners are not aware of this fact, and will feed the axolotl every day.

What happens is two things:

• Axolotls will get digestive problems as they will be unable to process all the food they are getting. This can cause impaction, and in the worst case scenario, obesity and even death.
• As you overfeed them, they start to reject food. And as they do that, they will leave food to sink down towards the bottom of the tank, where this food will get stuck in the substrate or be left to rot. This can cause bad smells from the tank, and it can cloud the water significantly. In turn, this can also cause stress for your axolotl and you’ll need to cycle the water frequently.

To avoid overfeeding, make sure you feed them only every 2-3 days with moderate amounts of food. If you see the axolotl rejecting the food, then it’s had enough probably!

Always Feed a Variety of Foods

I can’t stress this enough – it’s very important. You need to keep a good variety in the diet of the axolotl. You can feed them flakes and pellets, sure, but only to an extent. These foods can be the main type of food and it can be the staple of their diet, but it should not be the only food you feed them.

Instead, keep a good variety of foods on their menu. Axolotls like to eat live foods and frozen foods, such as bloodworms and other types of worms. Larvae and other similar types of food will also suffice.

Make Sure All of Your Axolotls Are Getting Enough Food

If you keep several axolotls, then you will need to make sure each and every one of your axolotls are getting enough food to survive.

It can be easy to just feed them the food and overlook the need to feed them adequately – all of them. It can lead to one of the axolotls being starved, which is never good.

Again, with many axolotls, it can be hard to measure how much food they require. So you will need to go through a period of trial-and-error where you will need to tweak how much food you’re feeding to each of your axolotls.

Conclusion

Axolotls need to be fed every 2-3 days, and they should be fed smaller to intermediate portions. Each portion should consist of enough food for them to eat in 1-3 minutes. For some axolotls, that’s a lot of food, while others will consume less.

There are also some things to consider when feeding your axolotls. You should never overfeed them, and you should also keep a good variety in their diet.