ok here goes- your going to need to take in a fair bit in the next few days buts its crucial to your axies health.
heres a link on cycling
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml its basically the process of bacteria building up to process fish waste. NEVER break down your whole tank and clean it all and fill it back up unless you are dealing with contagious diseases etc, it will cause your tank to re-cycle which is not only a hassle but can affect your axies health. during the cycle (which normally lasts around a month) you will need to be doing daily water changes of 25-30% to keep the ammonia down, ammonia burns fish and can cause your axies skin to peel, nitrite is also nasty at high levels. you need to get the test kits that skylar reccomended to see whats going on in the tank during cycling. it also helps to have them if your axie gets sick, water is the first thing we look to. only if you have animals in a tank while cycling will you need to do water changes. if you have access to any filters/gravel etc from another persons disease free tank you can put that in and it will jump start the cycle.
his fungus could very well be from stress due to high ammonia and nitrites. when axies get stressed etc their immune system drops which is when fungus sets in, its a oppertunistic pathogen but its not hard to get rid or normally.
directions for salt baths can be found here
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/salt.shtml more info on it can be found by browsing round the boards
freeze dried bloodworms are quite fatty from what i remember so id switch to things like worms, a good quality pellet, frozen foods (some stores carry frozen fish foods), mealworms- fatty and cut their heads off so normally a treat only, blackworms (they can live in substrate though so moniter that one if you think any got away), frozen bloodworms (also messy as they break up) etc etc. we reccomend not feeding feeder fish as they can carry alot of diseases if bought from stores and even home bred can still contain ickies that will harm your axie.
what do you have as a substrate (botom of tank) if you have gravel get this out now, replace it wil large river rocks (big enough not to fit in the axies mouths, also hard to clean) or sand (play sand, filter sand etc etc). axies will eat gravel which can block them up and we hear of peoples axies dying from time to time because of it. it will interrupt your cycle a bit but with those water changes everything will be fine and your axies will be better in the long run
normal routines for established tanks are normally weekly water changes of around 30% along with a substrate vacumn (this is where siphons come in handy, 2 in 1!!) depending on the type of filter you run the media gets rinsed in tank water when needed. spot cleaning for axie poops are a good idea and can be picked out with a turky baster (best poop cleaner ever i say hehe)
ok well thats certanly enough for that post lol but if ive missed anything im sure someone will add some more. welcome to our site, we have alot of friendly, helpful people here who will be glad to answer any questions you have!!!
