Old One Eye

We recently bought a new Axolotl (Gomez) to the existing one (Nacho) company.

We did not get a real god look at Gomez before we picked him up as he is black and was in a dark tank.

When we got him home and he had calmed down we noticed that he only has one eye and one set of gills on the opposite side of his body.

Do we have a weird mutant axie, or is this a fairly common thing? Will he grow his gills & eye back?

Are you able to upload a photo of him so we can see? The gills may regrow, not sure about the eye. Hope you are quarantining him/keeping him separate for 30 days before introducing him to your axie tank.

This is to ensure he is healthy and your current one doesn't pick up anything he may have and get sick.

If you don't have a spare tank, use a bucket or plastic bin and cover the top.

We have not quarantined Gomez (the mutant) from the other axie. They have been together in the same tank for the last two weeks and the other axie shows no sign of there being anything wrong.

Here are a couple of photos, but not being a great photographer and Gomez being black I am not sure what you can make of it.

that looks odd to say the least! is his eye just not there at all ? i remember seeing a thread on here about an axie that had no eyes at all... does he seem impaired at all is he ok getting food etc?

he has a very pointed snout!
there is a possibility that he may be a cross bred between an axolotl and something else, which may have led to the slightly odd characteristics.
i would have said that he may have been attacked by other axies but the toes and legs seem in very good shape, which rules that out somewhat.
at the end of the day though, as long as hes happy, an well looked after, it doesnt matter if hes a bit deformed, and he looks happy enough!

I wonder if he has been bitten while maybe younger/ or by something like a cat , cause it looks like scaring on one side. It may explain why it has a strange shape to its nose,I would have thaught its gill would have re/grown though

Cave axies have no eyes

I think you've just got a special axie there

When you say cave axies you are probably thinking of the blind american cave sals or the olm Proteus anguinus over in Europe.

leave the poor thing alone! so what if he is missing an eye and a set of gills all that matters is that you luv him!

he is so cool and cute . i hope he does well.

Sam I don't think anyone was picking on him.

Fergus, is there old scar tissue where the gills are meant to be, I'm not sure whether they will regenerate, but you never know! How long is s/he or do you know the age?

As for quarantining, just keep an eye on the pair of them over the next few weeks in case either show stress or sickness of some sort.

If you acquire any more axies try and quarantine it/them the next time you get another axie. It's important and regardless of the fact that you've had them for two weeks together and they look well, doesn't mean that one or the other isn't sick or will get sick.

There have been a few people on this forum who have rescued axies or bought another and not quarantined due to lack of tank/space and/or time or excitement to see them together. Invariably, the majority of the threads I have read when this happens the resident axie has shown symptoms of stress and/or sickness several weeks after the introduction of the new axie (one or two have died as well as the newly introduced axie).

One of my axolotls also doesn't have eyes. She gets along just fine.

If it feeds and isn't gasping for air at the surface more than a little, then I wouldn't worry about him at all.

Yes ryan lol