why won't my axolotl gain weight?

i'm still having trouble with my skinny axolotl - there doesn't seem to be anything else wrong with him other than he's skinny. obviously too skinny. he appears happy in all other respects

each day, he eats a combination of foods - 2 cubes of frozen blood worms, or frozen fish and live black worms, or beef heart and frozen shrimp.

he won't eat other live worms i've tried him with, and he won't eat feeder fish (or possibly more accurately he can't catch them) and he doesn't eat salmon pellets. he's always eaten directly from my hand, and i'm not keen to encourage him to eat pellets off the ground.

i'm not sure why he won't gain weight, because he eats quite a bit, every day without fail, and he seems happy enough. he lives alone in a 30L tank. we've had some warm days, and i know they tend to lose weight in the heat, is that what's happening? i'm saving to buy a chiller setup.

thanks

I live in Perth and it's been warm enough here up until a month or so ago; hate to think how hot it is up there . If you're feeding daily, there's probably not a lot else you can do without being able to lower the temperature. If you put him in the fridge, he probably won't eat below 10 degrees anyway. Mine lost weight at the beginning of December and I'm sure that was heat related and as my tank was regularly at 20-22 degrees all summer, I ended up feeding him almost every day to maintain his weight once I got it back to normal. I fed him earthworms (very nutritious, do you have those in Brisbane in summer?), frozen bloodworm cubes and axolotl pellets on a rotating system daily to get his weight back up, and then probably fed 5 days out of 7 thereafter all summer. Just starting to cut it back now.
So the short answer is yes, I think warm temperatures increase their metabolism enough to make them lose weight without a lot more food.

Hi livette,

I agree with lisa. Chances of you posting a photo?

i spoke to an aquarium vet who thinks it might be worms, so i'm giving him a worming treatment (one of the supposedly safe ones) and see how that goes. i'm giving him a low dose initially just in case. so far so good.

thanks for the advice

Livette - my first thought was on parasites, too. But in my opinion that should be tested before treated.

Did you have a vet doing a feces-test or something similar prior to giving him any medication?

yeah, that would have been the obvious sensible thing to do. i'm feeling really overwhelmed with all the things you're supposed to know about caring for these little guys that i obviously don't have a clue about - and all the conflicting advice i've been getting from different places, most of which has been incorrect or unhelpful.

anyway, mini-vent aside, the good news is that although the treatment seemed to make him a little bit sick, since then, he's been gaining weight steadily, and seems to be a much happier little fella.

Hi Livette thats good news.

Sounds like you have identified the cause and have found a suitable cure. Have a look at www.axolotl.org it has heaps of information on all things axolotls and mat help clear some of the confusion.

Good Luck

That's great news Livette.