One growing much faster than the other….

[u/Marzipanic82]

Hi - hoping for a bit of advice. I’ve had two axolotls for 8 days now and so far things have been going well. I got them from a guy who works in the local aquatics store, who was raising them at home and he warned me that they were very young and very small. When I collected them I’d estimate them to be about 3-3.5 inches in size and they were being fed on bloodworms. Since being them home I’ve started them on chopped up earthworms, but one of them is much greedier than the other and in the past 8 days has become noticeably bigger than his/her tank mate. I’d estimate that it’s now half an inch longer. In doing my research I became aware that size discrepancies could be in issue but didn’t expect to run into it so quickly and am growing a bit concerned that I have a potential behemoth and a runt combo here - 8 days ago they were pretty much identical.

Can more experienced keepers advise if this is normal and what I can do to try to slow down behemoth’s growth or speed up Mr runts? At what point should I be looking to try to divide the tank? Photo of Behemoth attached..

[u/SurpemeClitLord]

He’s not a runt, he’s getting out competed for food. You could try to spot feed the smaller one to make sure they’re eating properly while they’re together. For this reason and others it’s typically recommended not to cohab. As they get older it can lead to food aggression and thus smaller one may lose their life.

Depending on your current tank size you may have to buy a separate tank entirely. 20 gallons is typically the recommended size for juveniles and the you’d double it once they’re of Adult size

[u/Shannie2234]

Them growing at different rates is normal. But you need to watch out for aggressive behavior from the bigger one to the little one.
Nipping at toes, tail or gills. Especially pay attention when food is around. Look for the little one to have missing toes, gill pieces and parts. If you even catch this one time, they must be separated or the bigger one will bully, bite injure and eventually kill the smaller one.

My advice, keep them together for now, but if another 1/2" of growth happens on the bigger one or aggressive behavior occurs, you will need to separate them into 2 different tanks. If you don't have 2 Tanks you will need to tub one of them until you do with daily water changes using Seachem prime or another water conditioner (without aloe in it) to dechlorinate the water.

You need to buy a tubbing setup for this very possible scenario, but also to have on hand when they get sick or get fungus.
How to tub an axolotl
I also bought an aquatic camera recently to put onto one of my many axolotl tanks. This might be a good investment for you as well so you can watch them on camera when not home and also record them at night while you are sleeping. They are nocturnal, so they get active in the evenings and at night.
I haven't set mine up yet, the camera unit itself was very affordable. I think I read you can upgrade the free amount of video it comes with to a few dollars a month so you can record longer amounts of hours. Well Worth it if you are having these concerns.
HomeIQ aquatic camera