Mark Twain is half dead

after aristotle died, i was heart broken. the mourning period took many days, and i thought i could never love another axolotl. yesterday i wandered past an aquarium and looked in to see Mark Twain in a tank, emaciated and injured and half dead, so i decided i had to get him, as a service to axolotl kind, and try to save his life. not sure what's wrong with him, he was in a tank with all sorts of other fish and axolotls so i assume he's malnourished and has been bitten a lot. he won't eat anything and doesn't move around a lot. any suggestions? please find pictures attached

also, what colour is he? he's an ugly little dude, all spotty and stuff. or is he just diseased?

cheers
tom

He certainly does look emaciated. I wouldn't advise "rescuing" axolotls, because you'll just be funding people who keep them in bad conditions.

ben_tajer said:

He certainly does look emaciated. I wouldn't advise "rescuing" axolotls, because you'll just be funding people who keep them in bad conditions.

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gee, thanks for your overwhelmingly helpful advice with regard to this animal's health. nice.

Don't give up and be patient. Read as many threads in this forum as you can. My axi, Moreton doesn't move around much as he has been really sick. He was thinner than Mark Twain but has started to put on weight. He doesn't like earth worms so I give him little slithers of green prawn meat. I feed him with big tweezers once a day and when he has had enough he just doesn't take any more. I have to wiggle it in front of him to get him interested. Good luck

Keep the axolotl cool and offer live foods. Small meals on a daily basis will help get his weight up quickly.

But Benjamin is right. By 'rescuing' animals from the pet shop, you have not only given them money for an animal they've kept in terrible conditions, but you've freed up a space for them to get more. They see there is a demand for them. They will continue to get them in, and keep them in terrible conditions as long as people keep buying them.

Just a small add on to Kaysie's post try to offer live worms as they seem to be the best source of food. keep him cool and covered so he can chill and settle in his new home...and watch the water quality too.
I think , despite its thinness , that its very pretty and far better shape than the tank mate in the back ground of the second picture!!.. now to me his colourings are not typical axolotl..is there any possibility it may be something else ?

I think the Aussies have the market cornered on these odd 'copper' axolotls. There have been a few of them on the site, although I've never seen any in the states.

thanks for the tips all.

very good news, on my return from uni today i found mark twain to be swimming around checking out his new pad and, on offering him some bloodworms and pellets, he tentatively scoffed them down. he also seems to be happier, so good news all around.

as for the animal cruelty thing, i see the point. but the life of an axolotl in an aquarium store doesn't appear to be a kind one anywhere in melbourne. out of about ten aquariums that i've contacted, only two of them carry axolotls, the rest claimed that they're too hard to keep. the ones who have them keep them in very poor condition, with diseases, poor water quality etc. in fact, both stores appeared to have dead axolotls decomposing in the tanks. i'm guessing these people buy them at a dollar a pop, and retail them at 25, so they probably see a tank of dead and diseased axolotls as an acceptable loss with regard to the profit margin. it's strange that the axolotls always seem to be in bad shape, whereas other fish appear to be fine. not sure whether this is because axolotls have more apparent outward signs of harm, or because they're less hardy animals. overall it's a sad state of affairs, no doggie or kitten in the window would reach such poor health, and the same standards do not apply for axolotls because they're just "fish". i wonder if animal cruelty laws hold for axolotls. if so, an RSPCA officer would have a field day in this town..

I have viewed axolotls at Boronia Aquarium and also Malvern Aquarium where I got my axies. All of their axolotl stock appeared very healthy and were being kept on sand (unusual for pet stores around here). The only issue I found with my axolotl is that he was being kept with a much larger axolotl (a sibling who must have been hogging the food!) and was missing all legs. The other axolotl tanks were set up better in regards to size. The rest of him was fine and he grew back his legs in a few months after I bought him. Perhaps fish are harder to spot disease and stress in than amphibians, who knows.

However I have been to many Pet's Paradise stores (mainly to look at the axolotls but I can't do it anymore as I find it upsetting) and they keep their axolotls in terrible conditions. I would suggest in future you avoid buying sick axolotls and instead go through a private breeder and ensure you get a healthy one. I know a few people now who do that, and there is a 'Wanted' section in this forum for that purpose. You might have better luck with private breeders.

Anyway, it is great your axolotl is improving. Just keep your axie in good conditions and he should continue to get better

I think how they're kept in petstores depends very much on the knowledge of the staff. I've seen them kept in a tank with very strong current and in heated water and always on gravel, unless I've gone to an aquarium store, and usually the tanks are bare there. I don't know much about fish, but my guess is their requirements are very different axolotl's. Axolotl's are just kept like the fish unless the staff have specific knowledge, or bother to find out.

Now is the winter of an axolotl's discontent.

In other news, Mark Twain is doing quite well and eating regularly. However, he seems to come to the surface for gulps of air very frequently. Is this normal? He occasionally seems to ingest some of it and use it to make himself more buoyant, and then kind of floats around for a bit. What is he doing? He can't be starved of oxygen, I have a bar filter thingy on the tank.

Axolotls have rudimentary lungs, in addition to their gills. If the water has lowered oxygen levels or the gills are not supplying enough oxygen because they are damaged, they will come up for air. Some axolotls just prefer breathing air at the surface as opposed to just relying on gills. Your axolotl is just breathing, and it's completely normal.

I've found with axies that I've kept out side, gulping at the surface strongly correlates with temperature and aeration. At room temperature, in a typical axie setup, axolotls have fairly bushy gills and go to the surface somewhat frequently, in an alternative situation, I've only very rarely seen an axolotl surface at temperatures below 10º C and the frequency of surfacing goes down, the gills also got smaller. I presume the reason for this correlation is due to the increased solubillity of oxygen in colder waters, coupled with a slowing of the axie's metabolism.

oh okay, yeah his gills are wrecked, makes sense.

here is a video of Panda stalking my axolotl. Unrelated, but amazing:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pCeA-O7U-Sc

Huh, thats exactly what my cat does aswell Tom. I've actually left the house at 7 in the morning and returned at 7 at night, to find my cat hasn't moved an inch. Its gotten so inquisitive that the other day it was searching the bathtub and slipped in thinking there were fish in it. Anyway, good luck with the Axolotl, hope it gets better.

Aristotle said:

here is a video of Panda stalking my axolotl. Unrelated, but amazing:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pCeA-O7U-Sc

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Mark Twain is looking good now by what I see in the video, but what pops up half way through the video a subliminal picture of some sort.

Saspotato said:

I have viewed axolotls at Boronia Aquarium and also Malvern Aquarium where I got my axies. All of their axolotl stock appeared very healthy and were being kept on sand (unusual for pet stores around here). The only issue I found with my axolotl is that he was being kept with a much larger axolotl (a sibling who must have been hogging the food!) and was missing all legs. The other axolotl tanks were set up better in regards to size. The rest of him was fine and he grew back his legs in a few months after I bought him. Perhaps fish are harder to spot disease and stress in than amphibians, who knows.

However I have been to many Pet's Paradise stores (mainly to look at the axolotls but I can't do it anymore as I find it upsetting) and they keep their axolotls in terrible conditions. I would suggest in future you avoid buying sick axolotls and instead go through a private breeder and ensure you get a healthy one. I know a few people now who do that, and there is a 'Wanted' section in this forum for that purpose. You might have better luck with private breeders.

Anyway, it is great your axolotl is improving. Just keep your axie in good conditions and he should continue to get better

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just to add on here.. with good aquariums, the one in bayswater is really good, especially with the up keep of their axies... =]
there service is tops and all their marine life looks healthy
just thought id put in a good word...

That's good to know Robbie.

Mark Twain is now officially called "Sausage".

He's doing amazingly well.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ipcJSPC0REA

I think i've also discovered what killed my last axolotl. Sausage has been occasionally excreting feces in the tank. Aristotle never did this, so I'm guessing perhaps he had a blockage in his digestive system somewhere, probably due to being kept with gravel substrate by the aquarium.

Sausage, however, does poo. But it's only once every 3-4 days, and it's not this "pod" or "ball" that others describe, it looks more like wispy brown jelly stuff, very translucent and fragile. Does he has diarrhea? I've been feeding him axolotl pellets and frozen bloodworms.

Also, does there appear to be enough water in the tank? it's only about two-fifths full, i've heard mixed ideas on this topic. You can see the water level better in the other video I posted:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pCeA-O7U-Sc

Otherwise yeah, he's great, very friendly and animated, his gills are growing back, he likes to moon-walk around the tank and he likes to emerge at the surface and snap at the little morsels I feed him.