Zoes question

my axie is an olive green colour and usualy its gills are greyish in colour but i have notice now that it hasn't been eating its gills have gone a pink red colour?> whats wrong with my babies? can anyone help?

moved your question to its own thread Zoe

Olive (wildtype) axies gills are often a deep purplish colour, this is normal.

But can you provide more details and a foto. Things to tell us are water quality, temperature, about your set-up, how old the axies is etc.

This sounds like a temperature thing to me- sometimes when temperatures are out of whack they will go off the food and the gills will change color to indicate stress. Let us know what the temperature is and what kind of filtration you're using. (as mik already suggested

hey well i have 2 axles about 9 months old i got them when they were 6 months old and about 2 inches long. they are now easily 5-6 inches long and are going good. i find that when the water gets dirty they go off their food and dont eat until i clean it and then when i do clean it they become good. becasue of the hot weather the tank water seems to be getting really warm i wasnt sure if this was good but i have been trying to match temps when i change the water. but i cant seem to get it right? any tips?
my tank is a small ish tank about 2 feet long a foot deep and a foot high. i have river rocks on the bottom and some sort of filter.i cahnge the water every week

hey well i have 2 axles about 9 months old i got them when they were 6 months old and about 2 inches long. they are now easily 5-6 inches long and are going good.

What size tank?

because of the hot weather the tank water seems to be getting really warm

how warm is "really warm"? excess heat can cause extreme stress in axos so that they succomb easily to opportunistic infections. ideally the tank should be no higher than 20-21 degrees C, but it must not exceed 24 or so.

any tips?

Look around at some of the temperature related threads here. many people use frozen bottles of water to help control the temperature, but some feel this causes fluctuations in the temperature that are worse than steady heat. the best low-tech solution seems to be running a fan over the surface of the water all the time, as well as moving the tank to the coolest area of your home (and possibly putting it on the floor.

i change the water every week

How much do you change? Hopefully not all. If too much water is being changed on a regular basis the tank may not be cycling properly which would also stress the axos.


Good luck, e

This happened to my axolotl. The tank temperature was too high and unfortunately he died.

my tank is approx 25 litres big. i think 40 cm long and 30 cm wide. what does it mean by tank cycling properly???

Zoe check out www.axolotl.org housing and requirements pages.

Also do a search on this forum for the word 'cycling'.

Leah gave an excellent and concise description of cycling a couple of months ago. Sorry don't have time now otherwise I would give you direct hyper link thing to it.

well one of my axies died today... R.I.P. starsky. it was scary looking at it dead it was weird. well guys thanx for your help maybe now i can concentrate on hutch's health and hopefull turn him into a big man.

Sorry to hear that Zoe. Good luck with Hutch.