Illness/Sickness: Possible sepsis??? Help!!!!

emdalliance

emdalliance

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Kind of an emergency, my small two and a half year old adult female Leucistic looks kind of bloated.. She was in her tank and it got too hot (already lost two of my axolotls to heat this year :( ) so she was removed to a big tub on the floor and having daily water changes. She began to float. advised to put her in meth blue, did this and she stopped floating. Then advised to see if it was constipation or impaction and has been in the fridge since. She's been incredibly pale for a few weeks then was removed from her tank as she started to refuse food.
She's been in the fridge three days and tomorrow will be day four. No poo nothing.
She has also developed fungus in the fridge which I have managed to gently remove most of. She was given a tea bath during this process.

I don't know if she's just gravid and stressed due to the heat from before or if it's sepsis or what.
She has about 4 pin prick sized red dots on her and suddenly had a cut on her tail that suddenly appeared.

She was my first ever axolotl and I'd be gutted to lose her after losing her best friend.
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Aww, that's heart breaking. I'm new to owning an axolotl so i'm not sure what would be the best method to help her heal. Hopefully someone will come along and give you some good advice. I hope everything works out for you.
 
I'm sorry for your loses. I'd suggest giving your Axie a salt bath once a day for a few days to ensure the fungus is gone.
Something similar happened to my Axolotl and I'd also suggest putting a thermometer into the tank so you can regulate the temperature. Something that helped mine was putting ice cubes in the tank (least effective method), turning the AC on in the room if you have one, having a fan if you don't have an AC,another on too is to put a small fan over the surface of the water, or even get a chiller if your willing to spend the money. Another thing that helped me was keeping my Axie in a dark place since it was the coolest and away from the light. I've only been keeping axolotls for about 5 months so I'm not a complete expert but from my experience this should help. But I hope everything goes well and keep us updated if anything changes.
 
brightstar34 said:
Aww, that's heart breaking. I'm new to owning an axolotl so i'm not sure what would be the best method to help her heal. Hopefully someone will come along and give you some good advice. I hope everything works out for you.
Click to expand...
What kind of axolotl do you own?
The first 1-2 months of owning an axolotl seems to be the hardest and most challenging.
 
I have a leucistic and I believe a GFP leucistic. I've only had them for about 2 weeks so far, they are still fairly young i'm guess to be around 3 months old.
 
That's cool, I also have a leucistic. Where did you get yours from? I've been looking everywhere to find another axolotl to buy at a reasonable price and I haven't found any.:(
 
Yeah I'm doing teabaths as the fungus is only minor and I picked most off.
She's in the fridge for now.
All three of my tanks have thermometers. We don't have AC. I've got 2 fans attached to each tank and I use ice bottles but it's a difficult battle. We certainly don't have the money for a chiller, I have 3 tanks I'd need to chill and they're all between 100L and 250L so that's a lot of water lol. They've all been removed from their tanks and are in big tubs on the floor so I can change their water daily or every other day to keep them cool. Then my little lady is in the fridge.

Does anyone know of a mild antibiotic you can buy off the internet? There's no specialists vets around by me or anyone that's willing to see her. :(


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Try aquarium salt overnight, unlike normal salt so it won't burn , it will help healing her gill and get back some immun system , increase more blood flow. I'm not a vet nor an expert but from my own experience with heat problem that I had last year . 2 things saved my axolotl which was a few drop of melafix daily to help with fungus and relax my axolotl gills, and aquarium salt which help healing the wounds or mild infection and put the pink back in to my axie body again. The rest is just maintain clean fresh cold water till she ready to eat again . Keep her out from stress and be gentle.
 
I diffidently agree I use Melafix and some Aquarium it does wonders.Everyday when I cleaned out their tubs (when mine were sick) I put Melafix and a tiny, tiny amount of Aquarium salt.
I've had my battle with Ice Bottles too. I try and have one in the tank and one in the freezer ready for when that one melts.
 
Oh god the ice bottles nightmare :kill: I still have a dream about it :confused: I ended up moved all my 5 large fish tanks to the room with window so I can added the extra window air-con cause too many tank to buy chiller for all at once. The chiller I have hardly put out enough cold water when the summer heats hit the peek. If only I have more space I would buy a cheap freezer then run all my aquarium water hoses through it . Then finally the new place to hide my ice cream . :D
 
Okay I'll buy some Melafix.. How much should I put in?


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Get aquarium salt first . I use API aquarium salt your axolol need color back ASAP aquarium salt will improve your axolotl health and gills cause without aquarium salt your axolotl chance might not looks so good , then you can use melafix. Melafix only need a few drops per gallon daily to clear gills fungus. Do not over use melafix cause it's not for long terms use. Only if needed.
 
tipnatee said:
Get aquarium salt first . I use API aquarium salt your axolol need color back ASAP aquarium salt will improve your axolotl health and gills cause without aquarium salt your axolotl chance might not looks so good , then you can use melafix. Melafix only need a few drops per gallon daily to clear gills fungus. Do not over use melafix cause it's not for long terms use. Only if needed.
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I've already got aquarium salt, how much am I putting in? Baring in mind she's in a tub the same size as a lunchbox.


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Awesome , change the water for the fresh one then add just a few pinches of aquarium salt . Then check a few hours later to see of there any changes .
 
Adding a tiny tiny amount of aquarium salt killed her.


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I'm very sorry to hear you lost your axolotl.

I have to say I'm not sure if the advice regarding using salts for an extended period of time (i.e over night) was correct. Generally for bad cases of fungus a salt dip is sufficient, usually for no more than 15 minutes. But tea baths are usually enough to clear small fungal problems up, as you were doing.

From your original description I'm not sure your axolotl was showing signs of sepsis. Septicaemia usually causes swelling of limbs, body and face, with redness of the skin and prominent veins. Open mouth and off balance movement is also a symptom.

It may have been the temperature stress that caused your axolotl's ill health, in which case fridging and ice bottles are usually sufficient. Sorry not to have got the thread earlier :(
 
I 100% Doubt that aquarium salt kill her cause aquarium salt is not regular salt , I repeat aquarium salt isn't regular normal salt it does not contain iodine or shown any level of saline. ( I know that because I checked with my reflectometer) Aquarium salt does not kill anything other than boost electrolyte in aquatic animal ( for freshwater) It's very gentle For any delicate fresh water creature including axolotl . if you want to blame the advices i gave you , that's ok cause I weren't there in person to help you with your axie . There're many things that your axie could have had been through that i have no idea of. And all I could have done is assume by the picture you gave , and hope for the best. For that I'll very sorry for your lost.
 
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Thanks everyone. Tipnatee she was fine at a stable condition in the fridge.. I let her warm up out of the fridge and changed her to a bigger container with cold water and left her for a little to settle and she was fine (other than the paleness and the floating and tiny fungus) and then once I added a TINY amount of aquarium salt I checked on her an hour later she was on her side struggling for balance. Then about 3-5 hours after she was dead (we were out and she was dead when I returned)
It either was the salt for some reason we don't know, or a very odd coincidence. I know it's not the same as regular salt, I also know a lot of breeders will never use salt with axolotls, but I was willing to give your advice a shot as we all love our axolotls here and I've seen you post reliable advice elsewhere. I don't blame you in any way of course.

Texa, I wasn't sure it was septicaemia after seeing other cases but I have no clue what else it could be!
She had been with ice bottles then fridged which I thought would cure bloating if it was that.
She didn't have an open mouth but a few hours before she died she was stuck on her side.

Thank you for your advice though ❤️


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emdalliance said:
Thanks everyone. Tipnatee she was fine at a stable condition in the fridge.. I let her warm up out of the fridge and changed her to a bigger container with cold water and left her for a little to settle and she was fine (other than the paleness and the floating and tiny fungus) and then once I added a TINY amount of aquarium salt I checked on her an hour later she was on her side struggling for balance. Then about 3-5 hours after she was dead (we were out and she was dead when I returned)
It either was the salt for some reason we don't know, or a very odd coincidence. I know it's not the same as regular salt, I also know a lot of breeders will never use salt with axolotls, but I was willing to give your advice a shot as we all love our axolotls here and I've seen you post reliable advice elsewhere. I don't blame you in any way of course.

Texa, I wasn't sure it was septicaemia after seeing other cases but I have no clue what else it could be!
She had been with ice bottles then fridged which I thought would cure bloating if it was that.
She didn't have an open mouth but a few hours before she died she was stuck on her side.

Thank you for your advice though ❤️



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Click to expand...

I'm sorry I wish I know more of the condition , still I would blame me too if I were you if my axie die the moment I took someone advice. That's just reasonable. All axolotl like hard water and hard water contain some amount of dissolved salt. Maybe the water was already very hard just a little more cause the reaction? I don't know it's just far too crazy to be just coincidence. If you live in US I would ship you my axie for an apology. I also didn't know about the fungus or I would advice pimafix not melafix. Since your topic was the "sepsis?" Which mainly is some kind of bacteria infection. Melafix is for treating bacteria infection only, not fungus.
 
Oops My bad , I just re-reading my earlier post that I wrote and it came out completely backward . My annoying stubborn spell check just messed it all up . what I Meant Was Melafix was for your type of fungus /bacteria infection such as red dots all over axie body. Pimafix might have been a greater choice if only for white cotton hairy kind of fungus. If that was your case I would have advice pimafix cause pimafix is much more gentle than melafix, but since you said it might be sepsis melafix seem like a correct choice at the time so we might not know what exactly went wrong . However one things that I didn't asked you before as I should have ask is what was you tank's water condition to begin with? I think that might tell you more about what exactly went wrong beside the heat stress in the first place.
 
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