Am I doing the right thing???

Hi All,

I am a new axi owner, I bought my little ones about a month ago from the pet shop. All was going great and my little ones were growing everyday.
Then about two weeks ago my little black wildtype girl Peppa seemed to overnight develope fungus on her gills on one side, the next day she had almost halved in body size and wouldn't eat. Desperate for an answer to help my little one I went straight to google and found this site. After reading a bit of info I gave my little girl a salt bath and immediately took a sample of my water into the pet shop for testing. Amonia was 0 but my nitrite and nitrate levels were way to high. I did a 50% water change, and bought some plants to help with nitrate levels. I also removed the feeder fish that had been in my tank for three days (my axi's have decided they only want to be hand fed). I continued the salt baths daily and Peppa seemed to get better and started eating again. I seemed to have everything under control except for the temp which I am struggling to keep below 24Celsius.

Then my little olive/brown boy Carlos started to develop the fungus on his gills and Peppa got it back on the other side. It is not attacking anywhere near as quickly this time and Carlos is still a little guts when it comes to his food, but Peppa isnt eating again.

I have now removed them from the tank and put them in the fridge and will commence the twice daily salt baths tmr. i have tested the tank water and all Amonia, Nitrate, and Nitrite levels are pretty much where they should be and Ph is 7.5.

I am also removing the gravel from the tank while they are in the fridge. I am replacing it with finer graval that is about .5mm thick so almost like sand.

Any advice anyone can give me so this doesnt happen again and my babies get better would be much appreciated. As I am having trouble sleeping and am really worried about my little ones. Thank you everyone for all the help i have had from reading your previous posts it has helped so much, I just wish I knew about this site before a got Carlos and Peppa so they wouldnt have to go through this.

salt baths i have heard are good, and the temperature is probably a bit high!

Any ideas on how i can keep the temp down, the water bottle just doesn't seem to be doing the trick and as i am at work all day its hard to monitor.

The best way is to buy a chiller, but they are expensive..

can you get them from regular pet shops or is there somewhere else you can get one. can anyone recommend a certain type??

ebay will probably be your cheapest option. i dont think it matters what type you get as long as it does the job

The cheapest one I could fin was $525 maybe i will just ad a bigger bottle and a fan, hopefully thats enough to get the job done.

The little ones are looking a bit better fungus is halted in its tracks and going away. Peppa still hasn't eaten and I am worried. I have been trying meal worms. Is there a better type of food to try when they are sick??

Susan on the weekend or whenever you're home for a longer period of time try and bring the tank temp down by continually placing bottles in.

Make sure you have plenty of bottles frozen so you can just cycle to keep a constant temperature.
That way,when you're at work you can put some in for the duration without worrying about the temp rapidly rising.

Nubs has been through a similar problem and he wasn't too hungry for a long time.
Just got to be patient,I went from feeding him pellets to mealworms(I guess it was a hint to vary the diet more),so maybe something different in the diet would help.

Peppa finally ate - all her fungus had gone so i pulled her out of the fridge for a day - she ate 6 mealworms.

I bought some earth worms for them both but Carlos and Peppa wont have a bar of them which i thought strange because I read that axi's are meant to love them.

Carlos has his fungus all cleared up now as well, he isnt eating but takes the mealworm from me and spits back out every night. Also i think he vomited the other day because there was vomit type stuff in his container when I went to salt bath him. But I think when I pull him out for a day he should eat as he still has the instinct.

I have put Peppa back in the fridge and will keep them both in there for the next few days, as it has been REALLY hot on the central coast. And i couldnt get the tank down if I tried. The tank has been sitting at a steady 30Celsius - will have to wait to the heat breaks, it isnt even that nice for people at the moment and my cat is hating it.

Thank you everyone for your advice, I think with a bit more love and care my little babies are going to be just fine.

Any other advice anyone can give will be greatly appreciated.