Why is she doing this to herself?

I just went to change Martini's water and I've noticed that she's gashed herself!

There was like a piece of bloody skin on her front toenails, like she's scraped it off herself and now there's another wound on her arm!

I now know that it's not bite marks from Stella, but it's Martini that is doing this to herself!

Has anyone heard of a self-mutilating axolotl? Why is she doing this?

Please help, I don't know what to do.

Here are a couple of pictures.

The red thing next to her is the fleshy stuff and her left arm is where the fresh wound is.

Does she want to die? is she trying to kill herself?

I just picked her up to make sure she wasn't bleeding from underneath and the wound seems to have disappeared, like it wasn't a wound but blood from somewhere else.

I have no idea what's going on. It doesn't even look like there's a wound there anymore. Where is the red stuff coming from?

Okay, I took the blood thingy out and put it on a paper towel and it seems to be blood mixed with mucus - did Martini maybe poo this out or vomit it up or something?

im no expert, but my fish once scraped himself on a sharp rock in his tank. so maybe u should check the rocks/decorations etc in case there is somethin she could have hurt herself on,

She may have hurt herself on my rocks, but there didn't appear to be any open wounds and they just kind of appeared one after the other, more like if you have a blood blister. I have another post about it, but now I'm wondering where this blood came from.

She's in a bowl in the fridge with nothing to hurt herself on.

I'm worried that it could be what happened to Hailz's axie Lulu.

well i do not know what happened to her axie, what happened to it?

she found the blood coming out of her nostril and then her axie died. so sad

thats terrible

yeah I know, on second thoughts, it kind of looks like the blood could be coming from her gills.

I'm really hoping for some regulars to come on here in case they have any more answers.

I just found more blood in Martini's container.

She seemed to be doing really well when I had her in a bucket in my room for almost a month and the water got up to 24c. Now, in the colder water she seems to be doing really badly. Is it possible that b/c she might have been raised in warm water I should maybe have her in warm water instead?

She looks really sick, like she's in pain. I don't know if I could do it but I'm considering euthanasia. I don't want her to be in pain.

What do you think?

I think the fridge & salt baths are the best option. I hate the thought of euthanasia, but i can see where your coming from.

A few days in the fridge might settle her down. Looks almost like some sort of skin infection, most likely bacterial with random sores everywhere.

I havn't had to deal with anything like this in the past but i would be doing salt baths and would probably try a medication. Myxazin is meant to be good or tri sulfa. Unfortunatly living in australia like myself, all the best medications are unavailable.

With a bit of luck someone who has had to deal with something similar might share a bit of information.

I wish you the best. I hope the poor thing makes a recovery.

She's been in the fridge for over a week and I haven't seen any improvements.

She's only just started bleeding today.

I might have to try medication. Can you just get it from a chemist or is it actually from an aquarium?

Aquarium shops stock the medications.

Online stores seem to be the best place. But seeing as you need it now i would go to any aquarium shop.

The majority will carry Melafix which is semi axie safe (still better than nothing). You may be lucky however in finding tri-sulfa tablets, or methylene blue (might work but i have had little success with it). Myxazin however will be really hard to find.

Hope this helps.

yea id do exactly what your doing, just try the medicines that andrew reccomends, iv had success with Melafix. good luck.

Before you use melafix I would suggest searching under tea tree oil which is its main ingredient. Its being touted as a safe cure but it has been shown to be toxic to a large number of animals. In addition, as it is a tree extract that can come from three different types of trees, there is significant differnences between batches, so one batch may not cause a problem but the next one may. It is also liver toxic, the damage from which can take significant periods of time to appear.

Shotgun treatments often do not work and if the animal recovers it is often in spite of the treatment not because of it. Many over the counter treatments and remedies are useless due to the resistance of the bacteria or other pathogenic agents (in this case for example, it is unknown if there is even an infection, or a wound, gill damage can produce these symptoms for example) and the only benefit that they have is that they allow the owner to feel as if they are doing something beneficial for the animal.
In general, even if a vet does not have experience with axolotls or amphibians, if they are willing to consult with other vets that do (such as those at a Zoo) then you are better off as the vet has access to diagnostic equipment as well as being able to prescribe effective antibiotics that are much safer to use on the axolotl. Contrary to popular belief there is a lot of good medical information out there but it has come about mainly in the last six years so it hasn't gotten out to most vets (and yes a lot are not interested in herps) but there is good info out there. If you have a vet who is willing to work with you, but you don't have the information to give them, you can purchase Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry to take with you for the vet to review for dosages etc....

Ed

You've been doing salt baths, do you think this could be irritating her gills?

good luck! hope your little angel pulls through... its such a horrible feeling not knowing what to do... these guys on this site saved my axy's life over the last couple of days, after his tummy swelled up so he couldn't walk, after finding this site i took some advice and he pooed 23 stones!!! i now have sand. hang in there, hopefully they can save yours too...

Possibly Joan, I really don't know anything about sick axolotls.

It's been a week now since I've been giving her salt baths so I'll stop them and see if it helps her to get better. The salt baths don't appear to have helped but maybe it will have a latent affect.

I'll call around and see if I can find a vet that might consider helping me, I'd rather not use medication, based on Ed's advice. I don't know what I'm doing so I don't want to give myself the chance to get it wrong.

Thanks for the help everyone.

I've made a tank divider and put Martini back in the tank after letting her "thaw" from being in the fridge. She looks much more active in the tank and is exploring a bit.

Although, Stella now looks very angry that I've cut her tank space in half.

If Martini's not better by Monday I might take her back to the lfs and let them keep her in their hospital tank for axolotls.