My axoltl has passed away

I bought my axolotl about 4 months ago... He was generally very happy, active and eating properly.
Although lately i somehow got two snails in my tank and they began breeding and now there is about 20 littyle baby black snails in my tank and they multiply by the day. The past couple of days we have had a heat wave, temperatures of over 40 degrees (celcius) and my tank reached 29 degrees, although i cooled it down with iced water bottles. The weather has cooled down today but when i got home from work i noticed that my axolotl was dead. This loss has not only upset me but caused a lot of confusion because i have done so much to keep the environment in the tank right. I was wondering of anyone has any suggestions of how this may have happened.

Whats your water quality like?

I doubt the heat alone would have killed it that suddenly.

Was your axie showing any signs of stress in the lead up to its death? Was is floating much? Swimming around really restlessly? Did it go off its food? Any furry patches on its skin?

i change the water every week. Yea he has gone off his food and has been floating quite a lot. He had a fungal infection a couple of weeks ago although i got this stuff called melafix and that cleared up in a couple of days. I just dont understand how it happened. I use bioclear to keep the good bacteria and water hardener. I tried variety in his diet with a staple of pellets which he usually ate although he completely rejected beef strips and worms. During the past week or so i havent seen him eat any more than one pellet, the snails get to it... im thinking maybe they were the problem. I have been reading up today on ammonia etc and i never knew about testing for anything like that... maybe that had something to do with it ...since the fungal infection cleared up his skin was fine, now and then he may have been reestless although that was not frequent...

you say you use bioclear for bacteria... you dont need to add any bacteria suppliments to a cycled tank. was yours?
29C in his tank is very very high (sheesh even out outside temps dont reach that!!)and i would say the heat was definatly a factor in his death but probably not the single cause.
since you didnt test his water before he passed maybe you had insanely high ammonia/nitrate/nitrite (if your tank wasnt cycled) that could have weakened him a bit? could be a long shot though.

sorry to hear about your loss and i hope we can help you figure out what went wrong.

I take it you havn't cycled your tank then?

Snails arn't the problem. Axies have been known to eat snails, which isn't a problem unless they eat one too big.

You say you changed the water every week? How much water did you change? A cycled aquarium should only need 20% per week changed. Any more than that and you are getting rid of the beneficial bacteria which break down ammonia and nitrite into nitrate. The water changes are to remove Nitrates from the water.

I would say the cause of death for your axie would be starvation. If they are unwell Axies go off their food, and because of the hot temperatures their metabolism is speeded up significantly so their body requires more food than normal.

It is because of their starvation habits that sick axies are sent to the fridge until they recover. The fridge slows their metabolism down and also calms them from other stresses such as hot temperatures. Often the main reason axies are put in the fridge is because the cold temperatures give them the time they need to heal/recover before they starve to death.

Something else that may help in the future is that when axies are sick and not eating live food often helps. Mine love crickets! many people also recommend earthworms however i havn't had much success with them.

Try to steer clear of water addatives. Most of the time they do more damage than good (PH up & down solutions). Water hardener may however be the exception to the rule as in most cases it is simply dissolved sodium bicarbonate and a few salts (overdosing and adding too much to soon can also do horrific damage).

If you need further information on cycling (the nitrogen cycle) i would highly recommend you have a look at this link. http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml (there is a picture of my tank on it too, i know, shouldn't brag)

For future reference if you have a fungal problem with any other axie the best treatment is salt baths. Thats 1 teaspoon of salt per liter of water, and two to 3 baths per day for 10mins each.

I hope this helps.

you can change more than 20% (i think its around 75% max?) because its not the water that holds your good stuff its your surfaces ie substrate, filters etc

Hey Carly!!
Sorry to hear about the loss, its very upsetting i know
When you say change the water everyweek... do you mean a 100% water change or just a small amount of the water?

sorry... i was to slow posting, so my post is virtualy the same as Andresw's and Sharn's post!
sorry guys!

i thank you all so much for your help... I changed probably 50 - 60% of the water, although less when he had the infection as that is what was recommended on the bottle... and i was feeding him properly, pellets and worms, and i usually came back after an hour or so and the fod was gone, but there are that many snails in the tank i cant tell if he ate the food or the snails, as i often saw 3 or 4 at a time taking the food. i plan to get a new one next week, and his/her name will be junior, so i will most probably speak to yous again some time soon on axaoltol's, but for future references, in regards to the fridge, am i just supposed to put the axolotl in a container and sit it in the fridge? does it need to be covered? and what is a good size for the container? It was bad enough losing him let alone not knowing what caused it... so i thank you all again very much for your help and may speask to you soon...

Sorry to hear about your loss Carly. I'm sorry I can't offer any useful advice to help you discover what caused it though.

you just use a regular ice cream container or other food safe container. get one big enough that your axolotl can turn around comfortably and sit straight.
fill it up enough so that your axie is covered but its feet can touch the bottom if its floating (with tank water). place the lid on, wrap it in a towel (this is to stop temp fluctuations from opening and closing it and to stop your axie being blinded).

you will need to change all of the water daily with fresh dechlorinated water- place a bottle in the fridge so its the same temp. hope this helped

Sorry to hear about your loss Carly.

We lost our two axies a month ago and it's very sad and we still feel awful about it.

Christina