What am I doing wrong?

I recently acquired 5 axolotls aged about 6 months. They lived in a plastic box on my friend's veranda and thrived. I have had them for just on 4 weeks and thought they were doing ok in a large tank, fresh water, river pebbles, good pH etc - yesterday two of them took ill, swimming sideways, then upside down, then dead! I separated them from the other three but am not sure how to keep these alive. I have washed out a fresh tank (smaller but temporary) washed smaller gravel in salt and carb soda, added pond water from a back yard lilly pond - no fish - and tapwater treated with ager - is it safe and sensible to transfer the three remaining axys to this until I can sort out what went wrong in the tank. I have been reading the entries on this site and wish I had put the sick axys in the fridge - I didn't know about this. I tried salt baths and lowering the temperature with ice. any suggestions as to how I can make sure that the rest live?

Is it possibly that the pond water is not healthy? How was the feeding? have they been eating?

What was the temperature of the water in the tank when you lost the two Axies?

thanks for the replies - I am not sure of the exact temperature but it was well below 23 and I moved the two sick ones into much colder water - and used some ice - to bring the temperature down. They hadn't eaten for a day or two but I thought that might be normal. I have been hand feeding them as that is what they were used to. They normally eat meat - beef and chicken as this is what they were raised on - I have tried them on pellets with little success and was not sure how to treat earthworms before feeding so have not offered these yet

im not sure that beef and chicken would provide all the nutrients they require? id wait for ed on that one. earthworms just need rinsing, i leave mine in water for about half an hour cause theyre supposed to flush themselves but mine never have. if they are too big you can chop em up.

now that you have cleaned out the tank you will need to cycle it again, this will take around a month or so but you will need to do large water changes of around 30% or so every 2-3 days to keep the levels in check if your animals are kept in there. if you have acess to a friends filter get some media out of there for yours. also invest in test kits if you dont already have them, i dont use mine often now but i did when i was cycling, unless of course you want to make daily trips to your LFS to have the water tested there theres an article on caudata culture on cycling or you can do a search which will bring it up.

if the axies are acting normally i wouldnt stress too much. what are you using for substrate? and have a read around www.axolotl.org if ya havent already

hope that helps!

I think I am spending my waking hours - when not at work, although I check there too - at axolotls.org. I have established that my tank was warmer than I thought and am chilling it with ice as carefully as possible by hanging a frozen bottle of water on the the tank. I will move the tank on the weekend to the coldest part of the house (it is Thursday night here now).

I am using river pebbles as a substrate -they are about 2.5 cm long or there abouts. I had a hanging filter which I had set to the lowest possible flow and had attached a sheet of plastic to spread the water flow across the tank. I have turned this off in case it was causing stress but will reinstall it with some sort of additional filter to reduce the flow even further. I just have a carbon air filter - quite a small one - bubbling water in.
I have tried them on pellets and frozen blood worms but they showed no interest and they have snacked on some mosquito larvae. I have tadpoles in a frog pond in my yard (stripped marsh frogs - very common in Sydney) but was not sure if adding them to the tank as food was a good idea - there seem to be a lot of things that can contain bacteria. I test the pH all the time and the water tends to get acidic very quickly, I haven't acquired a test kit for ammonia yet. I don't think I know anyone with a filter to get the media from but I can use aged pond water which may contain some good things.

The alternative I am also looking at is finding them a better home with someone who will take care of them properly. I feel dreadful about the deaths.
I am please to say the remaining axies seem ok so far. They are eating and looking ok - no curled tails or forward facing gills. I really appreciate the advice.

did a quick read on your post and there are a thing or two that might be the reason, well as someone said the water from the pond might not be so healthy cause it´s not only the ph it is also other levels as nitrites and nitrates, and it also can carry some parasites,or some kind of bad bacteria, also if axies only eat meat they will probably, beside of the lack of nutrients, have some heart problems and die, I advise you to put your axies in a tank with tap water , treat it first, and try to change their diet, with some frozen food like blood worms.Also try and give them earth worms they have low fat.

While allowing the worms to flush themselves cuts down on tank cleaning it will also reduce the calcium content of the worm reducing thier suitability as a food source.

The meats shouldn't be considered a complete food source as they are imbalanced with respect to calcium and phosphorus. This causes the axolotl to scavenge calcium from the water colume which to some extent costs the axolotl resouces that can be put towards growth.

Ed

The good news is everyone is still alive and looking ok. I have moved the tank and it is now below 19 degrees (my thermometer starts at 19). The pH is 7.3 and the ammonium is 0 (yesterday 0.5). Nitrites were 0.25 yesterday but have gone up to >1 today. It is an 80 litre tank and I replaced 10 litres - is that enough for cycling or should I do 20 a day? I haven't tested the nitrates because I thought the test kit included this but it didn't. I found some worms - not easy in Sydney in a drought - and have fed them 6 altogether but I am not sure who ate them - I think one escaped and assume it will drown and I will have to find the body. How many worms can an axolotl eat? I have read up on worms in Jennifer Macke's article and will invest in some compost worms from the nursery - it sound like these might be acceptable. I will also try the bloodworms again - it there a trick to making them eat them - they seem to just float on the top and get stuck in the filter. Any other feeding tips would be great. Thanks for helping me and for all the great stuff on this site.

haha, no easy tips for feeding bloodworms easily unless theyre in a bare bottom tank, even in a dish they axies will still mess them all up when they snap at food.

you want to change as much water as you need to to keep your nitrite levels low, 20L would be good a day if you can manage it and if your readings tell you you need to.

axolotls often wont stop eating, theyre oppertunistic eaters, it depends on the axies size as to how much youd feed them and how big the worms are