Ah cr4p

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eric

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I put some plant fertilizer in my Axolotls' tanks yesterday and today all of their gills have gone white & shrunk. They're flicking them around a lot of surfacing for air quite often too. Has anyone else has problems with plant fertilizers before? I used Flourish Excel.

Guess I won't be putting any more fertilizer in for a while :/
 
It's actually an aquarium fertilizer, it says it 'won't harm your fish'. Too bad Axolotls are amphibians though :/

The Axolotls seem ok though, they're eating fine. I bought a new 1.2m tank a couple of days that I figured I would give a while more to cycle but I've put a few of them in there now and they seem alright too, it's funny to watch them chase the fish that I have in there (to produce waste for the nitrifying bacteria to eat).
 
I had the same with my axolotl, stupidly I put in some anti-algae stuff and the same happened to my poor baby Taco's gills. I gave her salt baths for a few days which seemed to perk her up, fed her a couple of times a day to keep her happy (she loves eating), and on the first day it happened did a big water change. She was gulping alot and looked really sick but a couple of days later was fine. I would never ever put anything in my axies water now apart from food!
 
I'g go with Mike...major water change and get rid of as much of the fertiliser as possible. I thrust it dissolved not a solid matter on tank base. If so hoover the stuff up too.

I'm tending to go with Leah, these days, on using fish for cycling the tank. There's no need and it is unnecessarily cruel to them the ammonia produced can irritate soft tissues... like gills. To cycle a tank be patient and follow the instructions given elsewhere on caudata. They are comprehensive and easy to follow.

PS Eric please don't use expletives to name your thread...even disguised ones. We like to maintain a responsible site.

(Message edited by mikki on December 23, 2004)
 
I only put the fertilizer in because the plants were looking pretty ill, the new growth is all yellow and another forum that I posted in recommended Flourish. It is dissolved, I've just done a water change so hopefully they should be ok. Sorry about the name.
 
I suspect that the problem wasn't the fertilizer itself, assuming that you used the recommended dose. If the NEW growth on the plants was turning yellow, then there was probably 'something else' wrong with the tank. (I have seen sick plants with the older parts of the plants turning yellow, but I've never seen the plant tips turn yellow.) Either that 'something else' was affecting the axies, or else the dieing plants themself were affecting the axies.

Was this a newly-set-up tank, or had it been up and running for a while? Are the plants still in there? I don't know what's going on, but perhaps there is something else about the water that needs to be identified.
 
The tank's been going for about a week, people in the aquatic plant forum I posted in told me it was a nutrient deficiency.
 
It does sound like a nutritional deficency. If the lighting is sufficient, I would guess iron is the lacking ingredient.

You can insert some flourite around the base of the plants to counteract this problem.

Ed
 
Well the fertilizer I added contains Iron so I'll see how they do.
 
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