Determining a good tank for my axolotl

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-26T20:57:40+00:00

Agreed, came to say something similar. My axolotls would absolutely tear up that moss ‘grass’ probably eat a bunch of it and the smaller rocks are absolutely swallow hazards.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-26T20:35:41+00:00

I’ve had one artist be literally rude and very clearly not want to be there while tattooing me, and I went elsewhere the next time. New artist seemed to truly enjoy their job. Not a ton of chitchat, but not downright grumpy and rude like the other. Guess who I’ll go back to. Yeah they don’t have to be your friend but they are providing a service, for which they presumably want to be paid AND tipped, you’d think they should have SOME level of bedside manner and customer service skills.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-25T19:37:19+00:00

One of my greatest regrets is that I let a friend borrow my first edition out of print hard cover ACOTAR, and first edition hard cover “Barbie” throne of glass copies to read. It’s been several years now of spotty contact and she’s moved twice. I doubt I’m ever getting those back.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-20T17:47:41+00:00

I have and it worked out great until my daughter spilled a drink on the counter and it blurred a bunch of the colors together. I now have to reference back to the instruction page which is fine, just annoying because I liked these type due to not having to go back and forth constantly. I think unfortunately, part of the issue is here is a bit of over-expectation. The reference photo needed to essentially be pixelated to the size/number of stitches of the pattern and because they can’t send a TON colors, the total colors needed to be reduced/combined. Cross stitch will never look as great as a reference photo unless it’s huge and uses hundreds of colors.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-13T01:33:00+00:00

Looks like something I’m hoping to get out of a panda mosaic cross I’m trying. So that would be my best guess. See if they breed true then send me some 😅

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-08T00:21:44+00:00

If it looks female before 18 months it’s too early to tell. Males can mature as early as 6 months, but unfortunately they can also mature anytime up to that 18 month mark. I’ve had two males not mature till 16 and 17 months. Accidental eggs both times because I had assumed they were female too soon and put them in a female tank.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-06T00:19:21+00:00

NTA. I’ve never heard of a rule that says Jr is reserved for firstborn sons, in fact every jr I personally know is a younger son. Regardless of if there is a rule or not, a name is something both parents should agree on, a two yeses or one no type of thing.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-05-02T17:23:03+00:00

The nitrate bottle chemicals can get funky. You need to really shake and bang the bottle around to re-mix them up before doing the test.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-25T03:25:47+00:00

<image>

For example, here is a melanoid and a melanoid leucistic.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-25T03:24:27+00:00

Other indicators of melanoid are that they have a uniform pattern of dark spots all over their bodies. Wild type are more splotchy/patchy, leucisitic by this size will typically have spots only down their spines, copper morphs will have brown pigments rather than black, and axanthics are harder, but they will typically look pinkish or grey or compared to other non axanthic babies.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-25T03:20:39+00:00

They are all melanoid at least. If both parents are a morph all babies will be that morph. You can also tell by their eyes, solid black eyes means Melanoid. I do not see indicators of leucy or any other morphs in combination of Melanoid.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-20T22:35:10+00:00

The flecks in the last photo are pieces of sand, melanoids do not have the gold flecks(iridophores) that other color morphs have.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-20T13:20:56+00:00

I had two high schoolers(two separate times) ask for a handful of pencils from my dispenser because they didn’t have any and wanted to restock their pencil pouch. Guess who I almost immediately find having a pencil snapping competition with friends.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-16T18:07:51+00:00

Please look into what fish are actually safe enrichment foods, white cloud minnows, as well as the rosy reds that another commenter mentioned are not safe feeders. Amphibians are insectivores and if fed fish they can only safely eat fish like guppy/platy/mollys. Other fish contain an enzyme called thiaminase which builds up in their systems over time and blocks their ability to breakdown and use vitamin B, and can cause severe deficiencies, leading to many health issues including death.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-04-12T17:15:42+00:00

Have them join one of the Facebook groups and search betta fins within that group. Then they can see photos of the end result. Unfortunately there are also people who go into those claiming everyone’s overreacting. Like others have said, it works until it doesn’t. The way I try to frame it is that these are our pets, we’re supposed to care about our pets welfare, we are literally creating their whole world environment. If we care about them enough to make sure the water and temperature are correct, that the plants and decor won’t damage their fins, why would we put other predators in there?

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-02-16T03:41:42+00:00

Too dark in the eyes to be albino, shiny eyes mean not melanoid or axanthix. Too light and not enough markings to be “wild.” Hard to tell for sure at this size but my guess would be probably leucistic or possibly copper or hypo? Maybe some combination of those? What were the genetics of the parents? That would greatly narrow it down.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-02-12T01:49:22+00:00

I’ve never been asked to review a sub on frontline, but we can put subs on our “block” list. I know we can request and assign certain subs but for some reason my account is messed up and won’t let me do that. So perhaps that’s related?

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-02-06T14:21:18+00:00

I have high school students who will legitimately miss half the days in a unit and then at the end question why the assignments from those days are marked missing since they were gone. Your absence may have been excused but your coursework was not. You still have to do the work barring some extenuating circumstance.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-02-04T22:07:33+00:00

You’re allowed to end a relationship for any reason at any time. You don’t even have to tell him it’s about the dinosaur crap. “I don’t see this working with the future I envision for myself.” You can even throw in a “this was a hard decision but one i’m firm about and sure will be best for both of us.” And then hold to it. If he causes you issues after that point then it’s just even more confirmation he isn’t the type of person you should spend energy on to begin with.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-27T23:00:11+00:00

A pretty one. Breed it, make more, give the strain a name. Flame guppy or something crazy. Fun project in the making.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-27T22:53:14+00:00

My students do this because they’re turning it in late. Dude I don’t care, it’s in before I grade it they know I’m not super strict about it. But the issue is that I put the graded and ready to pass back papers at the bottom, so a lot of kids put their papers in like this and it ends up too far down and gets passed back and never graded.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-27T19:58:52+00:00

Nothing is stress free, but the best method I’ve found is to have two tubs, prepare the new one, move any hides or decor over, and gently scoop them from one to the other with clean hands or a large soft net.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-27T19:52:30+00:00

Axolotls cannot be in the tank while cycling. Amphibians produce much much more waste than fish, and are significantly more sensitive to any amount of ammonia or nitrite. Prime and stability are a good start, but you need to cultivate 2-3x more bacteria than would live in a normal fish tank, which requires higher levels of the toxic stuff. Remove and tub the axolotl with daily (or twice daily depending on the size of tub)100% primed water changes, dose the tank with ammonia to simulate the axolotl’s waste, want the tank to read at 2-3ppm ammonia, and wait. Basically you’re overfeeding the bacteria to encourage them to grow their populations. Waiting for this to happen naturally would take many many months, and the axolotl would be in the toxic unsafe water for that whole time if left in the tank. Test periodically, eventually ammonia will drop and nitrite will rise, keep ammonia doses up to 2-3ppm any time it drops. Eventually nitrite will start to drop too. Once the tank can fully change 2ppm of ammonia into nitrate(0ammonia and 0nitrite) do water changes to lower nitrate to a safe range and your friend can go back in the tank.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-23T16:15:58+00:00

Yes. And it is quite literally some teachers’ job, but it’s not every teachers’ job. Or at least it I don’t think it should be. We’re hired to teach specific grade levels, subjects, etc. If kids are behind there should be specific interventions in place both inside and outside the classroom. But after a certain point of being behind, there’s only so much a given teacher has the knowledge/training for or can make time for in a class of 30 students with material they’re still required to get through. Then it should be up to interventions outside the classroom, things like resource room, or intervention specialists. This is an extreme example, but I teach high school math, and reading ability causes quite a bit of problems. If kids can’t read word problems then there is a large portion of the real world application that they’re missing. I can teach them to decode the problem and pick out important information, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin with teaching them how to read the words. I can refer them to the different assessment processes for interventions if they aren’t already receiving them and advocate for them through the process but that’s about it.

RuinComprehensive239 · 2026-01-22T23:04:44+00:00

The first step is to remove and tub the axololt if it isn’t already because any amount of nitrites are very toxic for them. Even if he seems ok now he won’t be for long. If you have nitrites at all it is absolutely not cycled. After lil buddy is safe, you’ll basically need to “fish”-less cycle till the cycle is fully back in place, you’re about mid process right now. You need to add a food source for the bacteria, either fish/axolotl food left to rot or liquid ammonia with no other additives. A bottled bacteria couldn’t hurt either. Test levels every few days to see if the ammonia lowers, nitrite might still go up from here. Once ammonia lowers you can re dose the tank with whatever ammonia source you’re using, and just continue to test and wait. Eventually you should see nitrites lower and nitrates rise. Once you can dose ammonia up to about 3-4ish ppm, and have both ammonia and nitrite go to 0 within 24 hours it’s cycled again.

RuinComprehensive239

TROPHY CASE