Question: Worried - Pear the Axolotl not eating!

[Paivi]

Hi there,
We have a new golden Axolotl boy, Alien-Pear, who has stopped eating.

He's been with us for a week and a half now. Initially he was quite thin, with very little 'feathers' on his gills, and it also looked like part of his gills had been bitten off. He also had a kink in the tip of his tail, like it had also been bitten. Or maybe it's a stress signal, had to tell which one, or both.

Luckily he was a good feeder, loved his earthworms and we even managed to get a few pellets into him, although they were not a favourite, and the gills started to look bushier in just a copule of days, he got a bit rounder and was quite active and alert.

Then, after a week of good life, he suddenly stopped eating. He hasn't eaten for a good 5 days now, is hiding in the tunnel or sitting in a corner, shying away from wormies we try to coax him to eat. He's got thinner again, the gills don't look as happy as they were last week, he is apathetic and also has a couple of white patches, one on his head and one on the side of the body.

I'm trying to understand as to why this is, as the other two in the tank are fine and behaving and eating normally and looking fine. The possible causes and eliminating them as I know are as follows:

The filter outlet is pointed up towards the surface of the tank and the tank wall, and it shouldn't be too strong. It hasn't changed from when they moved in, so I assume it is ok.

The water temperature was getting a bit high, we thought, at 22-23 degrees Celcius, and the water looked a bit off, so we did a water change and used the frozen bottle method to cool the water down to about 17-18 degrees Celcius. Maybe that was our mistake? Did we do it too fast or had too many changes up and down? But why would only one of them be affected?

We've stopped the frozen bottles now, and the temperature is at 19 degrees Celcius at the moment.

My partner introduced a big drift wood log into the tank, but it has now been removed as we weren't sure if it had something to do with Pear's current poor condition.

I tested the water day before yesterday, the pH was fine at 7-7.2, nitrites looked a bit high and we did a 50% water change yesterday.

We have 4-6.5mm pea gravel on the bottom of the tank as suggested by Linda Adkins in her book "Keeping Axolotls" (I have posted another question about this elsewhere in the forum), has he maybe swallowed some? Although she says it's ok for them to swallow some, that it will safely pass through, we still try to be careful and feed them with chop-sticks or from hand, or pellets from a little dish on the bottom of the tank. Mind you, Pear is not a fan of the pellets, and only really eats earthworms. And once my partner gave them pieces of prawns.

The earthworms we feed them are from our garden, the boys dig them up and then they get rinsed every day and kept in containers with wet kitchen towels for a few days to clean them up before feeding them to the Axolotls.

What else could be the cause? And what can we do about it? He is a lovely little Axolotl and was initially doing so well, and we really don't want to loose him! Should we try the salt baths & fridge treatment on him perhaps, would that help, especially if those white/pale spots are fungus? They look like in the photo that shows heat stress spots on Axolotl.com, so not furry or anything.

We are also supposed to go away for a week in a couple of days, which doesn't make the situation any easier :-(

Sorry for the long post! I hope someone can help us!

[Jennewt]

Is Pear by himself or with a tankmate? He might do better by himself. Sometimes a weaker individual will be intimidated by another. If the white patches look abnormal, you might consider salt baths. You will need to change the gravel, although it's unlikely that this is his immediate problem. See:
Filters, substrates, setups: please read before posting

Otherwise it sounds like you are doing all the right things.

[Paivi]

Thanks Jennewt!

Pear has two tank mates, they are both fine, he seems to be the only one affected.

Today he seems a bit better, is swimming around and looking out the tank, not hiding in his tunnel all the time. But still did not eat this morning. And he seems to have a little scrape in his knee and tail, and the tip of his tail looks redder and like it's been bitten.

I had a look at some photos I took of him when we first got him, and those white 'stress patches' are already visible there, and the kinked tail, so they are not new. But he was eatinga nd behaving normally then.

I am now in the process of preparing the fridge for him to go and rest in peace by himself, and start some salt baths later tonight, the water is already ready in the fridge. Let's see how he responds in the next couple of days!

[Paivi]

Update on Pear:
Tried to feed him again as he looked a bit more alert, but even an earthworm didn't get him interested, he just moved away from it. So he is in the fridge now, resting and waiting for his first salt bath tonight.

Thank you, Jennewt, for those links about the gravel and stones! Very enlightening. And highly infuriating, that the only book I found about keeping Axolotls here in Australia has so much crucially incorrect information! My partner, who has a long history of keeping fish tanks of all sorts, did not agree with some other stuff written in there, but the very specific advise on gravel and sand being so wrong is just terrible! Our tank will definitely receive a revamp! And the book will receive some feed-back from me on all the online bookstores I can think of If anyone knows of another book that would be worth while getting, please let me know!

[Paivi]

Another update and a new question on Pear:

He spent 4 days in the fridge at 7 degrees Celcius and had 3 salt baths in the first couple of days, as I wasn't sure if the white spots on him and some new white bits on hiss gills were fungus or not. The spots on his head and body are still there, but nothing else, so I stopped the baths, but kept him in the fridge, to relax a bit.

We tried to feed him a couple of time during the last two fridge days but he was still not interested in food. There was no poo in the water anything else passed during the 4 fridge days, but I did a full water change everyday regardless, using ready prepared & treated water from the fridge, so the same temperature (thank you so much for the photo tutorials of the fridging and salt bath procedures! They made the whole process so much easier and less stressful, well at least for me )

Just now Pear has returned back into the tank with the others. Will try and feed him in the morning...

Now the new question I have is, last night and tonight when I changed his water, I noticed a few very small flakes of skin in his container, normal, I assume? But what I found concerning was the shed gill bits I found in the container as well. Why would that happen? They were only a few, but I found that somewhat worrying. And his gills do look smaller and a bit frazzled compared to what they were a bit over a week ago. ALso the kink in the tip of his tail is still there (that has always been like that, so not sure if it's been injured and won't ever look straight again) but there is another kink in the middle of the top side of the tail.

Also, while I had his fridge container on the table acclimatising to the warmer temperature, he spun himself into a tight full circle coil, almsot like in pain. It looked rather alarming. Or am I just being a "mother hen" here and worrying about nothing? Would not surprise me as I have the house full of sick family members and I'm in a full worried nurse mode!

I have some photos in the camera, that I took of him yesterday and today, and some old ones when he initially came to us, and also when he was happy and doing well. I will sort them out tomorrow and post here, if that helps anyone to see something I'm not seeing and gives me a clue as to why he is worse again, why his gills are getting smaller and why he still isn't eating.

Meanwhile, I will keep an eye on him, of course, and hope for the best. And hopefully he will be ok and start eating again!