Illness/Sickness: New axos have skin issues and gill problems

[axolotyl girl]

Just acquired 3 adults a few days ago. The black one seems OK but I an worried baout the other two
1. the golden albino is missing the feathery parts of his gills, which look stumpy. No sign of fungus though.
2. the leucistic has a dark patch about 1cm diameter between his eyes. Is this normal or sign of some skin disease?

What is the cause of these problems and is it contagious? Although their tank had a powerful external filter I am not sure if the water quality was OK as the remaining tank water in the bucket they were in when I collected them was dirty.

Now that I have a 4ft tank I was hoping to introduce the new ones to my large male Alex who is perfectly healthy and try to breed some babies. But I'm keeping the new guys in quarantine as I am scared they may have skin and gill disease issues and don't want to infect Alex
What is your advice?

[Austin]

Pics would help a lot here. The leucistic with the patch, that could just be harmless pigment.
You don't still have that filter on them do you? Even the smallest water flow can stress an axolotl.

[axolotyl girl]

Well they were pretty stressed after a 1.5 hour journey by car in a large bucket. Plus moving into a new tank etc. They are not very active (even for axolotls)and spend a lot of time hiding in 2 large pipes in their tank. Th etank is in a dark passageway, on purpose as they hate bright light so photos in tank would be difficult. I could try to catch them and take hotos in a plastic tub but would that stress them out too much?
Also, how do I put photos on my posting?

[Kaysie]

You can take a torch in and get pictures of them. Don't try to catch them; they're stressed enough already.

I agree that the brown spot is probably just pigment. Missing gill filaments are often a sign of poor water quality.

To attach pictures, click on "Go Advanced" and then "Manage Attachments".

[jane1187]

Can I also just point out that you mentioned you wanted to introduce them to your adult axolotl. If they are still juveniles please do wait until they are larger before introducing, they should be a similar size to the adult.

Hope they're getting on OK, good luck.