Axolotls are strict carnivores that require a high-protein diet, primarily eating earthworms, bloodworms, brine shrimp, and sinking carnivore pellets. As suction feeders, they consume live, frozen, or thawed prey like red wigglers, blackworms, and small crustaceans. Adults should be fed 2-3 times weekly, with earthworms being the best staple food.
Wild axolotls aren’t picky eaters. Their diets include accidental algae (because suction-feeding isn’t always precise) and a variety of small prey, including:
Insects and insect larvae Worms
Slugs and snails
Small crustaceans
Small fish
Salamanders Tadpoles
Axolotl pet parents should provide a healthy balance of foods in their axolotl’s diet. A properly formulated axolotl diet can prevent some illnesses and help them handle stress and minor injuries. Remember: Good health starts in the gut. Fortunately, feeding your pet a diet similar to what an axolotl may find in the wild is easy. A healthy diet for an axolotl includes various insect larvae, worms, and crustaceans. Most axolotl foods are readily available and affordable. Pet parents who want a constant food supply for their axolotl can even culture or grow their own brine shrimp, earthworms, and water fleas (daphnia).
Just like humans have different needs as they grow, so do axolotls. At all ages, pet parents should feed axolotls as much as they can eat in about three to five minutes. Their food must be smaller than the width of their head. Remember that axolotls cannot chew their food. When they’re finished, use a turkey baster to remove leftovers from your axolotl habitat. This step isn’t required, but it will help keep the water cleaner. Your axolotl’s size also affects how you feed them: Juvenile axolotls up to 3 inches long should be fed daily, up to three times per day. When your axolotl is between 3 and 7 inches long, begin reducing feedings to twice per day, and then to one daily feeding. Once an axolotl is over 7 inches in length, space feedings out further. Adult axolotls over about 7.5 inches only need to eat every two to three days. They have slower metabolisms and need the extra time to digest food in their cool water habitat.
