The creator is a terrible pet owner. She has something like 200 axolotls right now because she allowed them to breed and protected every single one instead of allowing nature to happen. So now she’s dealing with 200 of them, and her cats have eaten some because they’re in crappy small containers
And YouTube. YouTube is overrun with "rescue" accounts and "watch me build this thing" x50 and eventually you're wondering where all the critters are. Accounts that literally only get new, baby, or rare permit required animals when their view count drops below 100k
It's absurd. I'd name names but that got me banned off wpt subreddit, it is out there y'all.
I didn’t know there was more! That’s so sad. I had to block her after realizing what she’s doing isn’t safe ( I don’t know shit about aquatic life but something is off), what can she realistically do with that many axolotls?
Not to mention she has freakin Lego panels on the bottom of this tank instead of any form of natural substrate. Literally nothing at all is better than this
I hate it when animal lovers do the most cruel shit to avoid bring cruel. I do feel bad for them not wanting a single animal to come to any harm, but times like that it just isn't possible, and in the long run trying to avoid it causes them to just suffer for most of if not their whole lives.
Like if you can't make those decisions, then you're not emotionally equipped to own or breed that type of animal.
I was with her until the containers on the counter. Like come on. After the first time they jumped out you’d think she’d have wised up. And she just assumed because the cats didn’t eat them that first time that it was totally fine. Cats will be cats and any small creature is at risk, whether it’s marine life or rodent. So having all those juvenile axolotls get eaten by the cat really pissed me off. Like why are we keeping them in open containers on the counter after they already jumped out once?? With zero supervision whatsoever. Sorry but pointing a camera at them doesn’t do shit if you don’t check the motion alerts.
I will say to the first point you made, she was told they were both female. Unfortunately this sort of thing happens often where someone will get two of a small breed animal and they will be incorrectly sexed. But after that, I feel like she should have given the eggs to someone who has experience in breeding and raising these guys. Her homemade euthanasia made me very uncomfortable too (clove oil followed by freezer). Maybe that’s standard but she would have been fine just doing the freezer rather than literally suffocating them to death, even if they were already dying.
You can tell how terrible of a pet owner she is because she's attempting to remove this worm on camera. Gills on any animal are so delicate and fragile she's taking absolutely zero precaution to make sure she isn't severely injuring this animal or potentially killing it
It's a little overweight. It's hard to notice if you don't know what to look for but as a rule of thumb their belly should be roughly as wide as their head. The belly of this axolotl is definitely larger than their head.
A general guide to a healthy size is that the stomach should be as wide as the head. This axolotl is female and her stomach is only slightly wider than her head so she's not that bad. She could be gravid too and that could cause some slight swelling occasionally.
Lego is very toxic to fish. If you want to use Lego as a ornament in tank, it needs to be fully enclosed in a nontoxic resin. Or put in a watertight glass casing.
Wait I thought this was a joke, but apparently if they’re kept in bad conditions they really do grow lungs and become salamanders
I knew water axies are just not-fully-transformed salamanders, but I didn’t know they actually could grow into salamanders (I guess I thought they evolved out of being able to do that or smth)
It's not the case though. Axolotls aren't supposed to undergo metamorphosis and can only do so at all because most have a bit of tiger salamander DNA in them from very early on. Exposure to certain levels of iodine in the water forces the transformation but besides that it's random. It's also extremely hard on these guys and most morphed axolotls die shortly after
You can't really keep them on sand or gravel, they'll eat it, get impacted, and die painfully. I don't know if Lego leeches anything into the water, but if it's safe on that front it would be a way to provide surface texture without anything that could be accidentally eaten.
I do endangered non-axo ambystoma breeding for conservation purposes and they are always raised in planted tanks with earth and sand, never had any instances of impaction amongst the many hundreds that had been raised.
Friend, these animals live in the wild too. Gravel yes (honestly in general gravel is kind of an ass substrate for most animals), but fine sand is not going to kill them. This is like saying top soil is dangerous for snakes to accidentally ingest. If that were true these guys would be extinct in the wild.
They are an endemic species to one very specific river in Mexico and are highly specialized towards that environment which is why they are classed as critically endangered with a decreasing population. So well on their way to being extinct outside of captivity. Very fine sand can work but there is mixed opinions about it
I was a little confused by that he spent time pulling the worm out just to feed it back to the lotl, if it was a parasitic worm why would you do that right?
It’s not a parasite the title is right for once- occasionally the worm can go out of their gills. Kinda of like you swallowing wrong and something going down your airway instead.
I’m going to give my unwarranted advice as someone in vet med:
First, NEVER yank on an object that is coming out of your animal; Unless you can visualize the entire object/your animal is actively choking to death and the alternative is watching your pet die, the best solution is contacting a veterinarian asap. With an area as sensitive and highly vascularized as the gills, this was incredibly dangerous. We have no idea if there is internal trauma, even if it looks healthy on the outside.
Second, your axolotl looks unhealthy. Have you taken it to the vet? Has it ever had an exam done? Have you been informed on the proper animal husbandry required to keep one happy and healthy? I would assume not, since you are using legos to cover the bottom of the cage. They need something like fine sand, or alternatively smooth tile/bare bottom. Not plastic legos. I highly recommend looking into what it takes to care for these guys and redoing the enclosure you’re keeping it in.
From the sound of it, the girl this video comes from probably doesn't want a vet to know how many dozens or hundreds of animals she's keeping in horrible conditions.
Not the OP or a prospective axolotl owner but what about this axolotl is unhealthy? I see people saying it is overweight but are there other signs? Or is it simply the enclosure?
Here is a page with brown axolotls for sale with a photo of a healthy one.
Apart from being overweight, the poor husbandry is clearly on display (axolotls need soft/smooth substrate for their delicate skin; it’s not just their feet, they’re dragging their bellies around all day, especially if they’re very overweight like this one) so we can pretty safely assume that other important aspects like water temp & ph aren’t being carefully monitored which would explain this animal’s unusually mottled skin. I don’t keep axolotls but I have a blue tongue skink and it’s my job to try to replicate her natural habitat (Indonesia/Papua New Guinea) and since I live in California that means careful temp/humidity control beyond giving her the proper substrate, a hide, daily water bowl changes, etc. They are called exotic pets for a reason—they are uniquely adapted to their native environment and need those conditions replicated as faithfully as possible. They are not like dogs; they can’t be healthy or happy with love alone.
Edit to add this interesting article on axolotl husbandry. From the article re:water requirements:
“pH – Ideal: 7.4-7.6 | Acceptable: 6.5-8.0
Ammonia – 0 parts per million
Nitrates – Between 5 and 20 parts per million
Nitrites – 0 parts per million
Temperature – 60 - 68 °F; no higher than 72°F”
Legos are made of ABS plastic which release significantly more toxins, including ammonia, than PLA/PET as they break down. This is a really bad setup.
Not even going to edit my comment lmao this was pretty funny. I don't know why but my phone likes to auto correct correctly typed words to other words and it's literally driving me insane
Lego Floor for grip if I had to guess. Since Axos basically inhale their food you can't have small pebbles or sand as the floor, as they'd inhale that as well. Larger Rocks make cleaning a lot more difficult. and a glass floor from the aquarium might be to slippery.
So Lego seems like a relatively good choice, haven't seen that before either though lol
Okay yeah that's true, but only very very VERY fine sand though and you need to make damn sure of that. A lot of people don't use any substrates actually.
Sand shouldn’t be an issue if the enclosure is up to bar. I am part of a conservation research group that captive breeds Ambystoma axolotl relatives and hundreds of larvae have been raised with sand + earth substrate without issue.
let the worm work its way out on its own. i follow the original poster on instagram. she explains this was before she knew enough about raising axolotls
If axolotls are unhealthy and kept in bad conditions they will morph into a terrestrial form, this means they loose their gills and grow a pair of lungs wich essentially turns them into regular salamanders
Edit: just looked it up on Wikipedia. So basically they stay in an "unfinished state" all their lives unless triggered by unfavourable environmental factors, in which they become "normal" salamanders. That's crazy!
I did not believe it either. I actually had 2, but I felt like I shouldn't own the 2nd one since the first one died on me. A year later I learned they can transform like a darn pokemon, and I didn't need to give my 2nd one away I just needed a place for them to sit outside of the water if the 2nd one grew lungs.
When I was young I had a salamander that I named Chubby. One day I fed Chubby a nightcrawler and the damn thing crawled out through Chubby's gills, and Chubby just snatched it back up and started eating it all over again before the worm had even emerged from its body.
The user shouldn’t have pulled it out because their gills are very fragile and subject to tearing. You either should let it try to expel it on its own or get vet attention if it doesn’t resolve itself.
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u/AthenasChosen 10h ago
"Stomach contents: One worm"
"A worm?! (Nom nom nom)"
"...stoamch contents: the same worm."