all five floating on side

Hi I'm brand new to the forum.

I have 5 axolotls about 4 inches long. I feed them live bloodworms daily and they have voracious appetites. They have up to now been incredibly healthy. They were great yesterday. I am scared that I overfed them last night or gave them bad worms. Today all 5 were floating oddly on their sides unable to maintain balance. I gave them fresh water and when removing them from the tank 2 vomited lots of worms. They seem to be burping a lot now and one was heaving a little bit. I’m really scared they are all going to die. I think maybe the worms were bad and are causing them to have gas??? I don’t think it is an infection because it was so quick and everyone is floating.

Does anyone have any advice or ideas?

If they're regurgitating food they're overeaten. Axies do tend to gobble up any food that's offered. I leave bloodworm and mosquito larvae in my axie larvae tubs with no problem.

How often do you change the water, how big is their tank and what is your tank temperature? Do they share their tank with any other companions?

Lower any water they're in so they don't float which can stress them.

Thanks Kapo,
I did lower the water so they can stand if they want. The tank is 1x1.5 feet, right now they are about 3-4 inches long and seem not to be crowded. I change the water around once a week, I use water that is adjusted (pH, salt and ammonia) for Xenopus and zebrafish, so I'm confident the water is not the problem. I keep them at RT which is regulated around 21-22C. Aside from each other, they have no companions. I use large glass marbles as substratum that are far too big to fit in their mouths. I'm pretty sure it is what they ate, just not sure if too much (and trouble digesting) or if the worms were a touch off.

What do you mean by water adjusted? The only thing you really need to add to water is a chlorine remover for waterchanges and the like.

Do you have a filter? If you don't have a filter you may need to change the water a bit more each week (we have 3 unfiltered tanks now, and have been changing them twice a week/every 3 days)

Do you spot clean daily at all, ie removal of waste/poo? If you don;t already have one, invest in a turkey baster they are great tools for sucking up poo/waste/regurgitated food (if any).

Are you able to lower the tankwater to temperature to under 20C and maintain it?

Do you test the tankwater at all?

If the worms are too large, chop them. I doubt whether the worms off, axies are opportunistic feeders and will just keep eating given the chance.

My two biggest ones are looking much better this morning, but the smaller three are still tilting to the side.

I work in a lab. We keep very large frog and fish colonies. Our water goes through a special filtration process and is then adjusted for salinity, pH, ammonia etc... The system dumps the water if anything is off. Additionally, we do water quality tests weekly. I don't use a filter, but I could get one (I'm worried about their gills getting sucked in and damaged). I do spot clean. It would be difficult to keep them at lower than 20-21 degrees permanently, but I could easily put the tank at 4-5 degrees for a while, and maybe put them at 18 in the frog room for a little while. However, in order for them to get appropriate attention, they need to live in the main room at 20-21degrees.

The worms are not too big, they all bunch together though and my axoltls love to eat the giant clumps. A guy across the hall feeds his adults big fish pellets. He said that they cannot digest the worms' cuticle and it may cause indigestion and gas. Do you think switching to pellets may help? I could save the live worms for treats.

I've moved them to a fridge called newt haven 18C.

A sponge filter is great!

rosa said:

The worms are not too big, they all bunch together though and my axoltls love to eat the giant clumps. A guy across the hall feeds his adults big fish pellets. He said that they cannot digest the worms' cuticle and it may cause indigestion and gas. Do you think switching to pellets may help? I could save the live worms for treats.

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They should be introduced to earthworms. Definitely earthworms. As for the floating on the side symptoms, they probably just have a gas bubble, which should resolve in a couple of days. They have been greedy li'l lotls.