Stressed axie?

More axolotl trouble! I'm in Aust as well and its been getting pretty hot in my tank. I noticed all 3 of my axies have been swimming around heaps especially my big black one. You know things aren't right when the big guy starts moving lol. I noticed Junior (big black one) had flaky white patches on his skin. As seen below, the white flakes are coming off into the water. Whats up with that? His eyes are also looking unusually white. :ufo: That UFO is so cool

Oh! I've had Junior in my fridge for the past 3 days and the other 2 in the fridge for 1 day. Hoping that's the right thing to do

Yes that's the correct thing to do. Just regular complete daily waterchanges on their containers - try and keep them in as long as possible as this will alleviate any stress they may have had while their tankwater temperatures were rising.

Did you test their tankwater for ammonia/nitrite and nitrates? How warm is/was their tankwater over the days before you fridged them? How often did you waterchange and did you cool their tank at all?

This will all have an impact on what is happening to your axies - the white flaky bits could be stress related (may be a bits of fungus which can happen when an axie is stressed - temperature and/or water related).

Ammonia was a little high but that has been corrected, nitrites fine. Temp was sitting at about 23-24 degrees celcius. I've tried cooling down the tank with blocks of ice but there was just too much water for this to have much effect. Junior's been in the fridge for a week now and is looking much better and happier. I put my other 2 in the fridge and they are also looking a lot better. Evil Australian climate lol

That is good news. Yes 23-24C is too hot. Not sure how big your tank is but I have a 2ft 60L tank and I can cool it to 20C very easily with 1.5L bottles of frozen dechlorinated water. I just put one in when temperature hits 22C and it takes about an hour to melt. A constant swapping of these keeps my temperature on 20C I bought enough bottles to have a full day of swapping them around but yea, you need a bit of freezer space.

My tank has been getting to 22-23 degrees some days (Perth), and I use the frozen water bottles and a three sided polystyrene foam shell that sits around the tank I made with foam from clark rubber. This keeps the temp more stable once you've added the frozen bottles, and means you can go a little longer between bottle changes and hence have fewer bottles and hence also have room for food in your freezer!! With regular frozen bottles and this my (small) tank is about 20 degrees, but I really can't get it any lower. Have been trying to find a fan that will clip on to the tank, but unsuccessfully so far.

Like you all, I am having the same problem. Temps in the tank are going up to 23 to 24 celcius. I am using bottles of frozen water as well to bring the tank temp down to 20 celcius. I like your idea Lisa of the foam shell. Im going to try it.

Hi Sharon,

Bunnings have cheap desk fans, over here in N.Z. $9.95 at present, (This is not an ad for Bunnings either).

Its a cheap and easy fix for tank cooling. Surface fans will increase water loss due to evaporation, so keep an eye on that.

There has been some great Aussie ingenuity at play with different cooling techniques have a search through the threads and you may find someone has a cunning plan.

Best of luck

Well I never thought I'd see the day that high temps in New Zealand would force me to fridge all 6 of my axolotls! But that's just what happened today when I got home to find tank temp at 25 degrees. An hour later all 6 are in the fridge (3 are sharing the vegie bin!). The peace of mind is worth all the hassle of water changes I'm sure. Outside temps are in low 30s with high humidity - very rare for this part of the country.

It's a nice opportunity to have an up close and personal look at all 6 of them - compare size, weight, condition of skin etc. And I've labelled the containers so I don't confuse any of them when they go back into their tanks!

All the best to axie owners in Australia.

Okay... get yourself a stainless steel wort chiller ( beer making) connect it to plumbing and tubing, stick it in a bucket or esky of ice, semi seal and you have yourself a VERY good chiller for those Really hot days...
I only use mine when my temp gets to 24 or above... my tanks sit on about 20-23 and have never had a problem with heat stress much to my relief. Ice bottles dont bring my temp down too much, fan works great.... today it has bought my temp from 22 to 18, But i use one of these larger box moving louvre type fans you can get at target, face down into the tank fits perfectly no worry of it falling in.
I also find that different themometers show different temps.... I have a heat spring thingy one that shows at about 4 deg higher than the "mercury" style one, and my lcd digital with probe shows another temp altogether, then to add to that the two stick on themometers on the new tank both show different readings again..... I trust my hand sense....if it feels cool to my hand its good.. if it feels more warmish than cold i do something..

Thanks Ian, I'm off to Bunnings then. If they don't have a suitable fan, he's back into the fridge again this afternoon as our weather for next week is going to be 35 degrees plus.