Need help with five none fur babies

Yellow everyone, I'm back from the dead.....
I hope y'all's summer was awesome! Mine was interesting, many trips to the hospital and busy traveling to sell my art work. Which means I had my 40 year old brother with A.d.d, and other mental issues watching my babies....

With that said, this is a long post as I have 5, 7-8 month old Axolotls... Up to 6 and 8 inches long. ..

My FIRST MAJOR CONCERN.
Stubbs is her name
I posted this question before, but I feel I need to re-word it.....
This is about my ever so loving, gentle and attention Hungry Melanoid' Stubbs I believe it to be a She since I already have two absolute males and maybes possibly a third showing their manhood.... And she is the most docile of the bunch. As soon as I put my hand in the water, she swims up to rest in it.
When I first got her, I noticed she had these adorable tiny stubby little toes and front legs. I figured over time, they would grow. Well About three months after I got her, she started to get fat. Fatter than the rest and I knew she was to younge to breed. She doesn't look uncomfortable, and swims fine. But her front legs kinda stick out her sides like they are bulging out of a balloon. She has always been twice the size in her belly than the others with her front legs half as short as the others. She's very friendly and let's me hold her. When I feel her compared to the others, she feels squishy. NO I'm not squeezing, I can just feel the difference. I fear she has short toe syndrome, ie - kidney defects.
Here are a few pictures... She seems happy, and eats like a horse. Might she be fluffy just like me?
My question, at what point do I euthanize? How big must she get? She's my absolute favorite and with everything that's gone on this summer, I Don't want to loose her.
she poops just fine, I watched first hand lol she doesn't float, bob or anything like that.
Is there anything I can do to release some of the water retention? I'm pretty certain my prescribed water pills won't help her lol And I joking! I would never do that!


My next concern is my wild type who injured itself (don't know the sex yet) about 4 months ago, he injured his face... At the time, I didn't know what caused it. I know now....
My dumb ars used PVC gutter material as caves. I sanded the edged, but he still got injured because of the thickness of the plastic. I'm currently making new caves now. Anyways, there is no fungus yet. But I did a very very mild salt bath, and popped him in the after I lowered the fridge temp. I raised the fridge temp slowly over two days. I only intend to keep it in there for a week or two, and only do one more mild salt bath. Do me it looks like a large injury, and with a flap of skin hanging off. I don't want to take the chance for infection.
I have Indian tea leaves on the way.

Now everyone else just looks skinny to me. I can't compare any of the critters to my yellow albino because he started off with a ginormous head.

I have two tanks, 2 in a 40gal, and three in the 55gal, both moderately planted with tons of floating plants.
I use Prime as a water conditioner, both canister filters are biological 6stage with UV filtration, in both I use, porous ceramic, poly fiber, bio balls, purigen, inert lava rock, pot scrubby sponges and 18watts, UV sterilization. Filter inlet has a giant foam sponge as well.
I don't use carbon because I think a tank should smell like nature ;-) especially the paludarium Canister filters were cleaned two weeks ago. Yes, using tank water.

.
My water parameters are as follows
Nitrites/0
Ammonia/2 (but it comes out of my tap like that, and even after treating. And yes, I even bought a second test kit to make sure..
Nitrates/20
PH/8.2
I don't remember my KH/gh but I can do it again if need be.
I did a 50% water change yesterday
Everything is the same, except that the Nitrates are just below 10

All but one will eat and the ones what will, eat the bloodworms, but For some reason are No longer interested in the red wiggles, night crawlers, and I swear they've become friends with the Platy fish I have in the tanks. I was breeding them for food... Just my luck to have Lotls that don't like fish...

Btw, A Vetrinary isn't an option anymore. Too many hospital bills, and the one place in a 70 mile distance that took Axolotls, no longer takes them.

Anyways, I pulled everyone from the tank yesterday and fed them one by one. All but one ate. I think they all need to be fatter, obviously except Stubbs...

Any input would be greatly appreciated

This is Stubbs with he tiny toes




And these are the ones that are the skinniest.



My handsome boy





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When asked: Why?
Because I couldn't stop at just one dammit!!!

Hi there Baby Sinclair

I wish i could offer more advice, I'm still a beginner at this myself but the one thing that really stands out right away to me is the ammonia levels and the ph.

A high pH will lead to a difficulty in lowering the ammonia levels in your tank. You need to get the ammonia down ASAP. 0 ammo is what you want ideally and in a cycled tank it should always be 0. To get a reading of 2 ppm in straight tap water is amazing...is it bore water or something of that type?? I have not heard of such high ammo readings from a tap source. Makes me wonder what they are doing to treat your water or if there is something running afoul at the water treatment/catchments.

You might want to look at forms of filtration that get rid of ammonia. And then look at getting that pH down too.

Hopefully others with more experience will comment soon but those two things are worth starting with in my experience. I know API have products to lower ammo but I am unsure if they are axie safe so you might need to google and ask around on here if you can't find the answer.

Hope you find the answers you need soon.

I believe it is a false ammonia reading because of the chloramines and chlorine used to treat our water. I've been lurking on a few aquarium sites trying to figure out he mystery of the ammonia reading... You should see the nitrate readings after a long drought....... It hadn't rained in a couple months, and then we had a three day downpour.. Tap water nitrates were are 15!!!!!!! Our municipal water is glacier water, but we are at the end of the line, ie, two blocks from the beach. So we get all the treated farming water, river water. It just simply never gets below 2. An ever so very light green in the API test tube. Just enough to see a change in color. All of my tanks are totally cycled. I have been a fish and shrimp keeper for close to 15 years. I was once told that Prime will help give false readings after treating the water. So I just ignore the very pale reading. When I see more of a lime green, I'll panick and dump gallons of water out my bedroom window again, and then bucket more water upstairs.... I could use RO water, but that worries me
Does anyone have a test kit they recommend? Maybe ait's just API's test that is the issue. I shoulda put these buggers on the first floor.
As far as the PH, I ain't touching it. I learned my lessons years ago. In the winter my PH drops to 7.6-8.
However when it comes out of the tap, the ph is 7.8 - fresh cold water has a higher content of CO2, thus lowering the ph. I'm thinking about adding CO2 in a low dose to control the ph?

To be honest, I'm worried about the injury


_________________________________________________________
When asked: Why?
Because I couldn't stop at just one dammit!!!

Hi there,

Wow you have been keeping fish and shrimp for 15 years, then it sounds like you know a lot and I would say you have a lot of the basic stuff covered from experience then in regards to aquarium maintenance.

Sounds like you have very unique water issues and I do wonder in part if from what you have said it is complicating the matters and the health of your Axolotls.

Yes a lot of the aquarium sites tend to have a lot more on stuff like this cause they simply have a wider breath of experience and people looking after fish, in comparison to how many people I imagine are looking after Axies.

API is one of the industry leaders for aquarium testing so as long as your kit hasn't expired I'd say it'a probably spot on in the readings Do you mean with your ammonia readings it is 0.2 ppm instead of 2 ppm. That would be a 'slight green tinge' in a API ammo test. A darker 'forest green' typically is shown for a reading of 2ppm. That is a enormous difference between the two and it sounds like you have trace ammonia rather than the deep green 2ppm??

With a cycled tank as far as my knowledge goes, ammo readings should be 0 if the cycle is working properly and converting ammonia to nitrite and then into nitrates. If the tank is cycled then either 0 or the occasional trace of ammonia is what it should be showing -but more often then not 0 ammo.

Nitrates are typically the large component in fertilizer/industrial contaminants. That is why fish waste is so good for plants. It's natural fertiliser. If you are getting high readings straight from the tap then it does sound like your water is very polluted. Do you have an R.O system ?

On a side note, if you do I hope you are using it for your drinking water at least (that is- an R.O system with proper post filtration remineralisation thats set up to be used to create safe drinking water) as it sounds like the water goes through a heck of a lot more than the average person to get to you indeed.

Most water has some level of contaminants in it (trust me this, don't go reading what is in your drinking water if you don't want to know and get freaked out) we have a lot of bad stuff in modern municipal fresh water distribution systems but yeah, it sounds like you might have a lot more.

When you mentioned that your water might be having false readings, were those readings taken after you treated it with something like "Prime" or straight from the tap? I've not heard of chloramines and chlorine affecting ammo readings myself as they are different chemicals. Prime can lock ammo in a 'safe' form apparently, but I was thinking of products more like ammoabsorb and such that actually help remove it, as well as different filtering media products that help ensure you have to bacteria sustaining in your water filter media to eat up the ammo created by the animals in your tanks.

As for the pH there is some range to which axies can live in ok, but I've mainly heard aiming for ph neutral for them. I remember reading with a higher ph closer to 8, it might create a situation where ammonia builds up in the tank cause of the changed chemistry or some such-but don't quote me on that. You will need to do some more reading on a lot of this as this all gets so complex.

Anyhow good luck for now and I guess keep up on the reading as I don't know what else to suggest myself right now until other members respond.

Aussielux, I'm such an idiot. It's 0.2 ppm. Even my fully cycled 10 gal with 6 teeny tiny Platy babies has a reading of 0.2 ppm.
I retested at home this morning. Tap water, nitrates-0, nitrites-0, ammonia .1 if even that.
After treating the water with prime, tap water has a .02 ammonia reading. The color is right in between 0 and .25

im on my way into town right now and i brought some tank water with me. I think I'm going to just get a new kit as well., and some ammolock granuals. I'm alsogoing to stop by this fish guru friend and drop off some plants (who also keeps DArt frogs)
With an luck, He'll smack me in the right direction . If not, he'll at least boot me out the door

I honestly never noticed the false readings befor until I started using Prime and Purigen.
But I do know some conditioners can give false readings on treated water.
As far as everyone being skinny. I'm feeding each one separately in a bucket every day until they look fat and sassy like me
I think my brother just neglected to feed them 3-4 times a week. I would guess he fed them once a week... What ever, just another reason for a sister to yell at her brother loll

Wish i had seen this earlier... at 0.2 or point 1/negligible trace you don't need ammolock i'd say.

its always good to have your water looked at with someone else's test kit incase your own reagents have gone bad.

Lol don't be too hard on your siblings ;P