Around a week ago, my axie stopped eating. All he would do was stare at the food for a moment, then swim to the top and take a gulp of air no matter what I fed him - his treat, bloodworms, a weekly piece of shrimp, or his typical nightcrawlers.
Then, I had a family emergency and had to leave for three days. On my return, I found that an area above his cloaca had become very strange. I'll post an image, but it's sort of bad, so I'll just describe it. Above his cloaca is what appears to be a coil of brown, then a few various spots of brown around it.
After trying to feed him and noticing that he had a very creepy twitch (his right hind leg snapped back and his tail wrapped into a spiral all of a sudden), along with the fact that whenever he flicks his gills, his mouth sort of bulges outward (hard to describe), and finally that he's still not eating after 11 days of starvation, I've assumed that he's very sick.
Two things have come to mind: internal bleeding, or a parasite, which is what I think he has.
The new nightcrawlers have been bought from Kijiji, and there's always a chance that they carry parasites, right? I did always soak them for a bit, but I never know.
Also, I recently added new almond leaves, also bought from Kijiji. As I didn't soak these, and just from the fact that I'm pretty sure a lot of stuff lives on leaves, that's where I believe the hypothetical parasite (or not hypothetical) came from.
At the moment, I have him fridged, and after frantically searching for vets in my area (Alberta, Canada), I've found none that treat exotic animals, and some didn't even know what an axolotl was when I called.
Any ideas of what's going on and possibly anything I can do?
Then, I had a family emergency and had to leave for three days. On my return, I found that an area above his cloaca had become very strange. I'll post an image, but it's sort of bad, so I'll just describe it. Above his cloaca is what appears to be a coil of brown, then a few various spots of brown around it.
After trying to feed him and noticing that he had a very creepy twitch (his right hind leg snapped back and his tail wrapped into a spiral all of a sudden), along with the fact that whenever he flicks his gills, his mouth sort of bulges outward (hard to describe), and finally that he's still not eating after 11 days of starvation, I've assumed that he's very sick.
Two things have come to mind: internal bleeding, or a parasite, which is what I think he has.
The new nightcrawlers have been bought from Kijiji, and there's always a chance that they carry parasites, right? I did always soak them for a bit, but I never know.
Also, I recently added new almond leaves, also bought from Kijiji. As I didn't soak these, and just from the fact that I'm pretty sure a lot of stuff lives on leaves, that's where I believe the hypothetical parasite (or not hypothetical) came from.
At the moment, I have him fridged, and after frantically searching for vets in my area (Alberta, Canada), I've found none that treat exotic animals, and some didn't even know what an axolotl was when I called.
Any ideas of what's going on and possibly anything I can do?