Cameleon like gill colour changes

Any ones axys gills go from dull listless pink to brilliant red in a fraction of a sec?

Yep mine do too. When he is sleeping or inactive, his gills tend to be very pale. But after eating and when he is more active they go bright pink very quickly.

I am sure it is normal.

If I'm not mistaken that's a sign of temporary anaemia, as quoted in the site, axies prefer somewhat hard water (contains a bit of salt, from what I understand). Axies can lose colour in their gills lasting from a few seconds to a few hours, but this is generally not harmful. This link will discuss it in a bit more detail: http://www.axolotl.org/requirements.htm#hardness

You dont get water much harder than Ours round here! Hey Bella! Dont know the specifics but a kettle lasts about 6 months!!

more active more blood flow reder gills.

I believe my axolotl's gills change colour when they are being more active..but I'll look at revontulets link this evening.
Russell, we certainly do have hard water..we had something attached to our water pipe that is supposed to reduce the hardness, but needless to say I have no idea how it works!! so my kettles last maybe a week longer than yours>

Some other posts on this topic if you are interested:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=50297&highlight=gill+colour
http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=50556&highlight=gill+colour

gill colour

I've noticed this in my dark coloured axie 'Gill', he seems to be rather pale lately, more so than not. Sometimes they seem green, or black then he eats and they become bright red again. My golden albino 'Sally' doesn't seem to have this problem, yet they share the same tank.

Cheers
Sharon

The colour of an axies gills is determined by blood flow. The greater the blood flow the brighter and more intense the gill colour.

So when an axie is inactive or asleep its gills will be paler and when it is active, hunting or eating the colour will be brighter and more intense.

my leucistic loses nearly all gill colour when he needs to poo, once he has been it returns.

The whole reason the gills are red are for the high amounts of blood in them. The oxygen from the water diffuses into the bloodstream via the gills.

Necturus's gills are much like an axolotls' (I have one), when they are frightened they pull their gills close to their head and the gills hvae most of the blood "sucked" out of them and they are a dull greyish color. If they live in a tank with low oxygen their gills tend to be bigger and more red, to have more surface area to absorb more oxygen. In in very oxygenated water they'd have smaller gills because the oxygen is absorbed easier.

So if the gills aren't bright red you either hvae a lot of oxygen or the axolotl just isn't too active.

As already said, the colour of gills is mainly determined by activity and blood flow.

What I can not approve is a correlation between amount of oxygen and size of gills (at least not for axolotls, I do not have any experience with necturus). From my observations over the last years, axolotls living under the same conditions (meaning with the same water parameters, feeding rhythm or even in the same tank) may develop differenz sizes of gills - independent from the amount of oxygen. After all amphibians consume a lot of oxygen by their skin, meaning the whole body.

Opposed to that an influence seems to be in the pollution of the water; higher levels of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate seem to have a bad effect on gills (until now I can not determine if all of these "pollutants" or even the amount of them). Some other factors seem to be the age of the animals (older axolotls often have smaller gills) and even genetics (differents strains/breeds).

Maybe someone else has an idea.

I never meant the gill size changes for axolotls. I was just making a point on how gills in caudates react to certin things. I should have made that more clear.