Help possible extreme heat stress!

[Parallax11]

Hi everyone! i have owned my mating pair of axolotls for almost 2 years and I have never had any problems until now. My albino female has completely lost her appetite and has lost a lot of weight. on her stomach there is a "rash" that is red on the edge and white on the inside it is not raised from the skin either. It has been super hot for the past few weeks and i am thinking extreme heat stress i have moved her into a smaller tank and have been regulating the temperature. Please let me know if I can and should do anything else i am searching for answers and am coming up short. should i "fridge" her?

[Paivi]

Hi there!

I just noticed no one has replied to you as yet and you must be anxious (I know I am with my own little one's issues!) so although I'm pretty new to Axolotls myself, maybe I can at least get the ball rolling for you

I have no experience on the type of rash you are describing, so cannot comment on that, I hope someone with more experience can. A photo of it might be helpful for someone to see what it could be.

A wild guess but I'm just wondering if a tea bath would help with her rash? I suppose it depends on what is the cause but if I've understood it right, at least it wouldn't do any harm, it's supposed to be quite gentle treatment and good for minor skin irritations. Someone with more experience might be able to say more to this. I've never used it myself so not sure. The instructions for it are somewhere on this page but I cannot remember now where...

As for the temperature, how hot has it been in your corner of the world? And what is the temperature of your tank? If it's gone above 24-25 degrees Celcius, then that is a problem and can definitely cause heat stress on your axies. Also, if the temperature has been fluctuating a lot, maybe due to air con or you trying to keep it down, that would cause stress as well. Steady temperature of 14-18 degrees Celcius is ideal (which you probably know already), but even warmer temperature is bearable short term as long as it's steady, the constant ups & downs cause more stress, I've read over and over again here and in the FAQ of axolotl.org. Well, as long as it doesn't reach the critical level of 24-25!

Fridging might not be a bad idea at all, I think. Someone here said, "whenever in doubt, into the fridge!" and for what I've read, it sounds like a good plan. The solitude and very cool temp of 5-8 degrees Celcius will help her relax and start to recover. It will also slow down her metabolism, so not eating is not such a huge drama. There is a great photo guide here for the fridging process, helped me a great deal to do it right (my little guy is in the fridge at the moment as well while I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with him):
Axolotl Sanctuary

Hope this helps, and someone with more experience corrects me, if I've said something that's not right!

ALl the best for getting your axies back on their happy feet and smiling again!

[Paivi]

Hi Again,

I just found the tea bath instructions again, so here they are, just in case:
Caudata Culture Articles - Illness Part 2

[Parallax11]

Thank you for the fridging instruction link! I have moved her into the fridge and am now working on her fungal infection which i think it is from all the info on this site. i uploaded some photos of it as well. if you or anyone else have other suggestions please share! i am desperate thank you again!

[Paivi]

Hi Parallax,

How are you going with your sick baby? The photos of the rash are very good, and scary! I wish I could help you and tell you what it is but I've never seen anything like that. The only thing I can think of is a really bad bacterial sking infection, with maybe fungus as well. But that is a very wild guess based on what I've read here and some photos I've seen here. Nothing is quite like what you've got there though :-( Sorry, I wish I could help!

Have you tried to put her in the fridge, did it help at all? Have you given her salt baths? That is good for fungus, but not recommended just for the heck of it as the salt can also damage their skin. If the rash is like cottonwool, then maybe it is fungus and salt baths could help. I personally would probably try it, but that's me. Calling a vet might not be a bad thing either! If it's bacterial, you might need antibiotics. On the Axolotl Sanctuary page is a world wide list of vets that know how to treat amphibians. Actually, if I remember right, there is a discussion thread about vets Stickied on top of the threads of this sub-forum, I found a couple nearby where I live from that.

Oh, I wish someone more knowledgable and experienced has a look at your photos and can help more than me with my guesswork! If I come across anything relevant, I will let you know though!

Good luck, I hope your axie gets well real soon!

[Parallax11]

Hi Paivi
She is still in the fridge and one of the sores is peeling and getting rid of the white film so hopefully the others will follow suit. For now i finished the salt bath dips for the 3 days and am hopefully going to figure out what to do next. my girl is hanging in there so i hope for the best! thank you again for all your pointers!! :)

[Paivi]

Hi Parallax,

Good to hear that she is hanging in there and the salt baths seem to be helping! I showed the photos you posted to my partner, who is a scientist with a passion for immunology and microbiology, and he agreed with that based on the photos, it very much looks like a bad case of fungus, with a possible underlying bacterial infection (the redness around the cloaca area may point a bit that way). But the white coating definitely looks like fungus, he said.

(If you want to go scientific & technical he said to take a swipe of the white stuff and put a thin layer on a glass under the microscope. If it's hairy, ie. has mycelium, it's fungal, but if it has clusters of unicellular buds, it's bacterial. Apparently it is quite obvious, but there are pictures online to compare, if unsure. You should have seen the enthusiasm he put into explaining it to me!)

So the salt baths should do the trick in removing the fungus, but you shouldn't stop them after just three days. You should keep on doing them until the fungus is completely gone plus another couple of days after. I'm sure you've already seen this:
Salt bath Picture Tutorial

I do hope it all clears out well and there is no bacteria involved, because then you would need a vet and antibiotics. I've just left my golden axie boy at the vet hospital this morning with a bacterial infection, but his was already there when we got him and it's gone so far, even with the antibiotics he only has bout 25% chance in pulling through, so we need a little miracle for him!

All the best with your girl, you sound like you are doing all the right things for her, so I hope it works out well for you! I'm looking forward to seeing another photo of her with all the infection gone and her looking sleek and happy again!