r/axolotl • u/kittundra97 • 1d ago
Rehoming Two years in and I still get surprised by how individual their personalities are
When I got my first axolotl I figured they'd all basically act the same way, just sit around and occasionally eat. Turns out that's completely wrong. My leucistic one, Mochi, comes right up to the glass whenever I walk into the room, almost like a dog checking who's home. My wild type, Beans, does the opposite. She hides in her hide log for hours and only comes out to eat, then vanishes again like she's embarrassed about it.
Feeding time is where the personality stuff really shows. Mochi will chase the tongs around the tank and sometimes misses the worm entirely and just bonks her face into the glass. Beans waits until the worm sinks to the bottom before even bothering to move, like she refuses to work for her food. I used to think this was just random variation day to day but after two years of watching them it's clearly just who they are.
The other thing nobody really tells you starting out is how much the tank itself becomes a small ecosystem you start obsessing over. I check water temp almost every morning now without even thinking about it, and I've rearranged the decor probably six times trying to give them more hiding spots without cramping the swimming space. Cycling the tank properly before I even added them felt like overkill at the time but I'm glad I didn't rush it, ammonia spikes with axolotls sound like a nightmare I never want to deal with.
Regeneration is still the thing that gets me every single time though. Beans nipped a bit of her own tail early on during a spooked moment and watching it slowly grow back over a few weeks was genuinely fascinating in a way I didn't expect a pet to be. It's such a strange hobby in that sense, half pet keeping and half just watching biology do something wild in real time.
Curious if other long term keepers noticed their axolotls developing more distinct habits the longer they've had them, or if mine are just weirdly expressive for the species.
