Is my axie sick?

I'm a little unsure at the moment.

I woke up this morning and inmediately noticed my axolotl's gills had shrunk signifigantly. Not the main meaty part, but the filaments looked like they were non existant. I shone a flashlight onto her and noticed the fillaments were there, but were shorter than usual and appeared light yellow in colour (this is not a golden albino animal mind you,).

My axie seemed very sluggish and weak, so I fed her a night crawler and she is back to her normal behaviour. I've had her for 2 years and she was a baby when I got her so she's still pretty active and swims a lot. I think the sluggish behaviour before was just her waking up from a doze because she's acting fine now.

After feeding her, her gills looked considerably bigger with the blood in them, which eased my mind a little bit, but they still weren't as big as they were the day before.

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As you can see her gills are on the smaller side right now.
I'll take another picture when she settles down so you can see the yellow colour.
That strange kink in her bottom right gill developed a year ago, its not new and hasn't bothered or affected her at all.

After feeding her I tested the water, every thing seems pretty normal, pH and ammonia are a little high but the water was due for a 20% change so I'm sure that has something to do with it. Any tips for lowering pH would be much appretiated however.

pH 7.8
Ammonia: Colour of test appeared somewhere between 0-.25ppm, closer to the 0.
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: Somewhere between 20-40ppm, colour appeared closer to 20.

My axolotl is in a 20 gallon by herself and the temperature tends to stay around 18-23 degrees Celcius this time of year since it's hot. She's on sand and has a live moss ball in with her. She has a hide and fake plants she can also hide in, and her filter is a sponge filter so I can't imagine this would be caused by stress.


Anyone have any idea what could be happening to my axie and what I should do about it?
I'm going on vacation on Saturday and I'm pretty stressed out about leaving her for a week like this. If she doesn't improve by then end of Friday should I fridge her? If I do that is there anything I need to tell the person looking after my animals to do while she's in the fridge?

Thanks in advance everyone!

Hello everyone, just wanted to do a quick update before bed.

I've been monitoring my axolotl closely all day, and she has been acting her usual self. Maybe slightly more lazy than usual but as I mentioned earlier I fed her an earthworm this afternoon, though I usually feed her every other day, and today she wasn't supposed to get anything so I'm pretty sure she's just a little stuffed.

Anyway, she hasn't been inactive enough today for her gill colour to settle down so I have no new news about the yellow colour her filaments were earlier, hoping I will be able to check that out soon.


However her filaments in general look much fuller than earlier today.

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I got the 20% water change done today as well, so I'm feeling a little better about this situation.

My axolotl really just looks her normal self and seems very healthy and happy.
I'm hoping to continue to see improvements tomorrow morning, I'll update then.


Anyone have any ideas what that might of been about? I'm at a loss, everything seemed normal except for the filament shrinkage and the yellow colour which may or may not still be there.

It's most likely the temperature - axies don't like it over 20C. Try cooling your tank - fans, ice bottles etc will be fine for the temps you're describing.