Dead. Can anyone help with why?

My mum woke me up about half an hour ago because our axy is dead

We're both gutted. Can anyone help us find out the cause though please?
We've had other axys die before, but we now know it's because the tank was too small for more than one so we stuck with just this one.

He/she (we called it she but I think it was he lol) has been going for ages. I have no idea how long exactly but I'd say over 8 months deffo.

This last week or so her gills have been bright red, but as they have gone like it before I wasn't overly worried.
She then wouldn't eat though, so I checked the temp which was the same as she's always been in, and the water was also fine.

This morning my mum found her on her side dead.

There was an old cockle in with her, but she had a habit of hiding them from me and making me think she'd eaten them, and then I'd find them and take them out. This isn't the first time she's done it so in my mind it doesn't make sense to be because of that.
It wasn't in her mouth or anything, she was just sat on/near it as usual*rolls eyes*

I tested the water just now and it's all fine. The nitrate is high but she and all our fish have been living in it for their whole lives as it is a tap problem.

Here are the pictures I took. Her gills have gone really weird, and there's a load of stuff underneath her.








Edit: I forgot to say we have been wallpapering and painting the room her and mums fish are in, but the tanks were covered, and she didn't even have an air pump!
All the fish are fine. And she was still ok and moving around yesterday.
It was her wall was that was painted yesterday (she was where the fire should be in a normal fireplace) but the paint dried quickly and wasn't even as smelly as the ceiling paint! And the tank stayed covered for a few hours after to make sure.

(Message edited by section8angel on November 09, 2005)

Hey i dont know if you mentioned the red/black skin patches on the axie but i think that could be the problem. I jsut recently read in another thread about sumones axie having a similar skin infection.

not entirly curtain but i think thats the ause, but some might disagre.

But omg wat a poor axie look at him and in one of the pics he looks so hapy mabey he foudn his way to heaven.

The stuff underneath her?
That only appeared today. I have no idea what it is.

Sian,

I know someone who had a similar problem with Eastern newts after a room that person kept them in was painted. Some of the paint got in the water. It was such a small amount but even that tiny drop killed all but one newt. I think there was either four or six in the tank. I think it could either have been the fumes or perhaps some paint somehow got into the tank if your Axolotl was doing just fine up until then.

The blood marks on his stomach is Rigor mortis, settling of the blood. Because Axolotls skin is do delicate, the blood has started to come through.

I'm sorry that your Axolotl died. I really think it was the paint that killed it. Most animals are so sensitive to human products.

Good luck to you in the future. Will you be getting another Axolotl?

You mean when he died or while he was still alive. ( when it apeared).

Im sure its a skin infection but if it god it while it was out side the tank, when it died i would suppose it was the bacteria from outside.

Umm.. about the painting of the room mabey some particles got onto his food? if so that might be your problem.

Hey can anyone else help him im not as skilled at this as some of you?

I'm pretty sure no paint whatsoever got into the tank because it was -totally- covered so we would have seen it on the cover (it's blue on a red and white cover, no missing it lol) Unless it turned invisible lol.

She wasn't exactly "fine" before, as I said she hadn't been eating and her gills were very red (I have no idea if that's bad or not, as said hers turned it randomly)
BUT she did have phases like that a lot so I wasn't totally worried.

The marks appeared after she died, so must be the rigor mortis like Rheann said.

She was fed before the painting even started, and didn't eat anything, so I don't know how it would have got onto the food.

I understand how bad paint fumes can be to animals, I lost some sensitive fish because of them when I did my room.

What I don't get is why she died when the fumes weren't that bad, but my newts survived my room being painted and the fumes from the paint I used were worse And they weren't covered as well as the axy was.

Are axys more sensitive than newts? Or is it just one of those things? =(

While I think of it, can anyone tell if she was actually a he from those pics? I remember reading somewhere about the males having black on their feet, which I think I saw on this one but I'm not totally sure.

*Sighs* Thanks for the help and the good luck.
No Rheann we wont be getting another. We still love them and everything but we don't want to lose anymore. I just wish I'd taken more decent pics of her when she was alive. I only have 2 =/

Oh and Stipe, I'm a she lol (Unless you meant the axy, then nevermind :P)

(Message edited by section8angel on November 09, 2005)

How old was she?

Even if the fumes weren't bad for you, they could have been very bad for it.

What exactly were the water parameters? You said 'fine' as with the temperature, but you don't say what the actual numbers are. If it hadn't been eating, there was definately something wrong.

With bright gills, that usually means an infection, or heat stress.

If it had a habit of looking like it was eating shells, then it was probably eating shells. It could have gotten impacted.

There are lots of possibilities, and we'll probably never know exactly which one was the main culprit.

I've been thinking about it more and it still doesn't make sense.

We painted the ceiling at -least- 3 days ago, and the fumes were bad with that paint (We had the windows open for that one) But she was ok after that.
Yet we only painted one wall yesterday, the fumes were no where near as bad, and now she dead.
Yet all the fish are fine including our sensitive eel.

I hate it when things don't make sense.

The only thing "bad" with the water is nitrates which are between 20 and 50 (there isn't an exact colour, it's not better than 20 but not worse than 50 lol) but as said her and our fish have lived in their whole lives as it's a tap problem
(I do know it can shorten their lives though, but it hasn't done it with anything else. Mum has catfish over 9 years old and they're not all hardy ones)
Ammo and nitrite are zero, and ph is 7.5 the same as it's always been.

She's lived in roughly the same temp for all her life (23 and under, which I know is slightly high but she's lived in it forever)
So why hasn't she had the bright red gills all the time, and wouldn't she have died sooner if it was because of that? (I've read it causes stress and disease, she's not had any disease - not any you'd see that is, I know there are unseen ones)

The gills just randomly got brighter every month or so, then after a few days went paler again.
It was the same with the eating, sometimes she'd just go off food for a few days.
I do know part of that to be that she was fed up with the same thing though because when I fed her something different, she ate.
I.E I'd feed her cockles 2 times in a row instead of cockles then something else, so she wouldn't eat till I changed it lol. Fussy so and so.

We don't know how old she was. But we've had her for at least a year and she was only about 4 inches long when we bought her. We felt sorry for her as she was all alone because the previous owner had her in with a fish and it bit one of her gills off. So she was in a tank alone to try and recover. No more ever grew back though. She just had the tiny amount left. It was so cute.

Where did the eating shells come from?

Oh and I know higher temps and nitrates aren't fine/ok etc I'm just trying to work out why they didn't effect her earlier if it's anything to do with them, and why they haven't affected any of the fish or my newts.

(Message edited by section8angel on November 09, 2005)

Maybe th effect was taking place but you couldn't see it until she had died. Maybe the fish are also going to perish or have an immunity to whatever chemicals were in the water.

From the paint fumes?

Our eel has just eaten and looks fine and dandy (so do the rest but they have scales, he doesn't so we're more concerned about him) But we will keep an eye on them all.

Are axys more sensitive than newts?
Or do you think our axy was just unlucky (or my newts lucky) with the fumes?

(Message edited by section8angel on November 09, 2005)

I think axies are more sensitive than newts probably.

Axolotls and newts are all caudates. They're all pretty equally sensitive to chemicals.

Sian, it could have been a number of things. When you said she'd make you think she'd eaten cockles, cockles are shelled clam-like things, so that's where the eating shells come from.

To your question about he/she?I would say he,although what I would call "balls" seem split down the middle,almost the look Diablo,my guy,had when I got him,after being in warm crappy water for ages and a stressful day of transport.He was cooking,So maybe if the chemicals had slowly crept into your tank or was in the water since your first paint,and the last paint fumes finished him off?maybe he was being burnt by it?Just a thought.
Sorry your axie died Sian

Thanks all and thanks for answering the he/she q lol. I thought he might have been getting "balls".

My newts have been lucky then 'cause they're still fine and dandy and my room was painted ages ago.

I remembered something else just now.
We painted our doors a week ago (maybe more, I can't remember) and she'd been fine. She was still eating up until 3 - 4 days ago maybe.
I'm not sure if that is when we painted the ceiling or not.

The cockles we buy don't have shells, but I do remember reading about axys taking a long time to digest their food.
I wondered if another part of her random acts of not eating were to do with that to? She was full and didn't want anymore?

She... He sorry... wasn't an axy that would eat and eat. He stopped after a few of what I was feeding him -everytime-. And even if I put some in again later for him, he normally only ate 1. But normally always ate again next feeding day.

Pah. It sucks =/
I'll ask mum and dad later to see if I can get a better idea of when we did paint everything. The only thing I know for certain is that the one wall was done the day before he died.

Thanks again all.

Hi Sian,

So sorry your axie died. I had a little leucistic who died a few months back, I still don't know why and it bothers me all the time.

Just a thought, you said your axie hadn't ate for a while?

Looking at the pics, his bum area looks very swollen, I don't know but is it possible that he ate something that blocked him up?

Or has he been passing excrement ok?

Its just a thought, the swelling could of happened after he died.

So sorry again Sian, its hard losing them

Just a quick note to the moderators - would it be possible to add a warning to this thread about the graphical content? I wasn't prepared for such a sad sight, kinda shocked me

He hadn't eaten in about 3 days or so but as said he used to do that randomly.
But as for passing anything... we rarely actually saw him pass much at all since we'd had him!

The first time we saw some poop we didn't realise it was that straight away as we hadn't seen any of ours do that before!

So god knows where it was going when we didn't see it.

It must have been getting sucked into the filters or something before we saw it.

I've only just realised that!
How often are they meant to poo? I don't see much from my newts either.

Sorry about the pictures...
And thanks. It doesn't seem right without my little kirby lookalike staring at me.

(Message edited by section8angel on November 10, 2005)

I have no idea how often they poop, like you said, the filter usually sucks it up.

I've only actually seen axie poop once or twice, when my axie was in a container in the fridge for constipation.

That's ok then. Glad to know it wasn't only us not seeing them!

How long did you have him?