Question: Baby axolotl acting weird/sickly?

So after I did a water change for our little axolotl yesterday, he began acting very strange. We have been doing 100% water changes since we got the little guy, last Friday. He is only 2 inches so we have a 10 gallon tank filled up about 3 inches of water. After the water change, he started breathing funny. It almost looked like he was suffocating or something? It was weird. And last night he opened his mouth really wide and looked really strange almost like he was taking a deep breath? It seemed very strange for him to act like that and I have never seen him do that before. I checked the ammonia of the water and it was very low so I am not sure what is going on. He ate... A LOT. So that is good at least. I just want to make sure my little guy is alright! His coloring is good and his tail is not curved and his gills are not forward. Anybody have any suggestions? Thank you!

Hmm that's a tough one to answer but in my opinion more water equals more dissolved oxygen so maybe add more water. I have four juvenile and they seem to do the opposite I can tell if there water needs changed when they start flapping there gills allot and afterwards they seem to not flap as much I keep my teen gallon filled and they don't seem to mind. Maybe make sure your dosing you're dechlorinator correctly. (Assuming you use it)

Okay... Maybe he is just acting strange because he was getting acclimated to the water again? IDK. And it is tough to do a good dosage on the dechlorinator simply because there are no measurements on the cap that we use so we have been just guesstimating. Maybe we should give him more water. How big are your juvies? The breeder I got this little guy from told us to just fill it 2-3 inches of water so he doesn't panic while searching for food. (Which he already swims around in circles before he ever find it) LOL I just want to make sure he isn't going to die on us as I love him so much! He/she is just so dang cute.

Mine are three inches. I started hand feeding black worms at two inches and then got them to eat out of a feeding bowl. The way I dose dechloronator for small amount is take the amount for what ever the bottle says .say 5ml per 10 gallons. Then I see how many drops equals 5ml. Say it's 50 per 5ml. Then if i want to dose one gallon i know I need five drops. So to make it easier 5ml per 10g . 50 drops per 5ml. 50 ÷10=5 hope that makes sense . My dechlorinator is the pop cap so drops are pretty consistent. If you have the screw cap you may need to buy an eye dropper for accuracy.

The big deep breath sounds like it may have been a yawn. Look up an axolotl yawning and see if that is what it looked like. Did the behaviour calm down at all? It could just be a little bit of stress from the water change.

Yes he calmed down. I think it probably was just the water change. He does that yawning thing quite often but I think he is okay. Been really active and still eating and doing his normal axolotl thing. He is growing so quickly! Already grown probably 2 inches since we got him.

Yes they grow so quickly ! I made the foolish decision to put my four in a ten gallon until they got bigger now I'm rushing to let my 75 gallon cycle lol .

That is funny! We put our first little one in a 10 gallon tank and it grew very fast. By the time she got to 5-6 inches, it looked like she was squished in there with not many places to move so we put her in a 55 gallon and now we got another little baby and that one is in the 10 gallon tank now until it reaches around the same size as the other one! Lol they are such cool pets. I love to get home and watch my little guy eat.