Illness/Sickness: My new axolotl can't close her mouth?

Hi there. This is my first time posting on this website but I've been lurking the forums for quite some time now. Everyone on here always seems to offer the best advice so I thought it'd be worth a shot to ask for help.

This past Friday I became the first time owner of two adult axolotls. The previous owner didn't know much about them (clearly). He had them on a turtle food diet, with some sort of tetra reptile filter, and the tank was completely bare without even a shelter for the axolotls to hide in.

Since we got them we have upgraded the filter to a fluval (I "seeded" some of the filter media from my betta's cycled tank to help reduce the strain of the cycle). I realize that the tank is technically cycling right now with the new filter so I am keeping up with constant testings and water changes to make sure the axies are ok. Right now the PH is 7.6, ammonia has a small spike at 0.25ppm (I know, not good, gonna work on that more today), nitrites at 0 and nitrates at 5.

The axies now have sand, some PVC pipe to use as a little cave, and moss balls. I also have a fan running at all times that keeps the tanks temperature at a steady 64 F. I'm planning on relocating the axies to a bigger tank but for now they're in a 20 gallon with a divider to separate since they are male and female.

Anyways, sorry for all the backstory. Wade, my leucistc seems to be in perfect health. He looks good, eats well, and acts like a normal axolotl (from what I've seen/read). Blair, my female, seems to have something off about her.

She eats perfectly fine, I feed them night crawlers which they LOVE compared to the pellets they were on. I'm surprised neither are underweight. Blair, if anything, looks overweight. She has no struggles eating and always seems to have an appetite. Her gills are not curved forward and from what I can tell, her tail tip is not curved either. But she does look very chubby and her mouth is never closed. It almost seems like one side is more raised than the other as well. I will attach photos of her, they're not the best but hopefully someone might be able to help.

I AM taking both to the vet within this upcoming week but due to my boyfriends work schedule (we share our car) it's going to be a few days. In the meantime, can anyone offer suggestions as to what might be the issue? I freaked myself out reading about kidney damage and MBD but I'm hoping it might be as simple as a mouth infection. I heard those are easily treated by a vet. I've become very attached already and I just need some advice to get me through until we can get them both in to be looked at.

Sorry if this was too much info. I just wanted to cover all the grounds. Thank you for sticking around if you've gotten this far. I'm happy to be a first time time axolotl owner and I look forward to interacting with everyone on this site. Hopefully one day I will know enough about axolotls to help a panicked, first-time owner like myself. Haha.

If she is eating well, I wouldn't be too panicked yet especially since you are keeping such a close eye on your water quality.

She may have just injured her mouth somehow and the swelling will go down, or it could be a physical deformity that she handles just fine through out her life, or you could be correct that she has an infection.

Is the vet you will be taking your axolotls to an exotic vet? If not, it may not be worth the money until you can find one.


Best of luck with your new pets!

First off, thank you so much for replying. I really do value the opinions of experienced axolotl owners so thank you, you really put my mind at ease.

Blair is still eating perfectly fine, I cut her worms into 1/4 pieces and feed her one little segment at a time so I can make sure everything goes down ok before offering her another piece, but she hasn't seemed to have any issues swallowing yet. Last night however, I did notice a weird little white patch near her tail. It could be new or it could've always been there and maybe I just didn't notice since I just recently got them, but either way I think it's best to take her in.

We were actually referred to an exotic vet that specializes in amphibians by the exotic vet we take our mice to. The vet we made an appointment with even has a picture of an axolotl on their website, which makes me feel more relieved. One vet we called had never even heard of an axolotl.

Her appointment is set for this Thursday at 9:30am and we are taking Wade in as well just in case it happens to be an infection. Nothing wrong with getting a clean bill of health. Thank you so much! I am less stressed knowing that as long as she's eating, she'll be fine until her appointment.

Just in case anyone has a sick axolotl and is hoping for answers on this thread, I wanted to let you guys know that Blair had her appointment today and there's nothing really wrong with her. We opted to do x-rays and it turns out she's just fat (or pregnant, fat deposits and eggs apparently look the same through an X-ray and without an ultrasound in that facility they couldn't differentiate the two. Not fluid though, they showed us the difference between an axie they had treated that was full of fluid and Blair is definitely fine.

Her mouth is from a previous injury. The vet guessed that someone dropped her at some point and never bothered to take her to a vet to see if there was anything they could do to help realign the bones. Her jaw was at one point fractured on both sides, though her right side is REALLY bad. She is always going to have a strange mouth but since she's eating well and seems to have adapted to it, there's nothing to worry about.

Wade is perfectly healthy, just need to work on getting his gills a bit more fluffy. He also has an extra little appendage on his back foot I never noticed good thing he's named after Deadpool.

All in all I'm relieved, they will have to go in for occasional checkups (especially Blair to make sure her mouth never gets worse) but they will be totally fine. Thanks everyone!

Glad to read that they're doing well!
When the water quality evens out, the gills should bulk up some naturally; I wouldn't worry about it. Just takes a little bit of waiting