Question: odd behaviour

My smallest Axie, Mirabu, is behaving strangely at the moment. He's off his food, often fanning his gills (every few seconds) and is gulping air once a minute. Also just noticed he's sat on the plastic plants at the top of the tank with the top of his head exposed, i assume so he can gulp better, and his tail appears to be thining. Temperature is below 20C and apart from slightly higher than normal levels of Nitrates (usual just before their water change tomorrow) chemistry and pH of the tank are all within acceptable amounts. The other male, Ujimitsu, is slightly larger and is showing no change from the norm whatsoever. Ujimitsu still takes food from my hand, foragers and rarely gulps. Usual amount of axie waste and sperm capsules in tank, removed as soon as located. Mirabu shows no physical changes other than the thining of his tail (ie. no cuts, missing limbs or digits or obvious fungal growth).

Any advice?

Do your water change today. Mirabu may be more sensitive to water conditins than your other axolotl. The same way in which one person can be allergic to something but another person isn't. All the behaviour you mention point to your axolotl trying to cope with its water conditions.

Oh I already did just, felt i should state what the conditions were like when i noticed his head above the water. Thing is he's been off his food all week and fanning his gills and gulping for lots of air afor around 4 days now.

Just wondering, but considering I can't find anything out of the ordinary with the tank conditions that hasn't been the same for the last 6 months they've been in it, any idea what could have changed that wouldn't show up on the the chemical tests etc.)

How old is your axolotl and what is its colouring?

I'm asking because I have a leucistic axolotl who under different conditions to yours is also showing some thinning of her tail, however she isn't gulping at the waters surface nor fanning her gills, however her gill size has reduced noticeably.

1 year, 4 months and around 10 days (he was hatched in the uni lab I was studying in). He's a melanoid/wild-type, around 15cm long. Short gills but he's always had those as have most of the ones from the lab.

I am very new to axolotls so excuse me if I am wrongbut I think it sounds like lack of oxegen(frequently fanning gills and taking lots of gulps from the surface) and if that is the case then I'd try putting in an airstone or live plants.Again sorry if I am wrong










chris:wacko:

superfin said:

I think it sounds like lack of oxegen(frequently fanning gills and taking lots of gulps from the surface) and if that is the case then I'd try putting in an airstone or live plants.

Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree. It does sound like your axie is trying to get more oxygen. What sort of filter are you using and what's the water current like? When you say that all of the parameters in within accepteble ranges, what are they? Ammonia and nitrite should be a constant 0 and nitrate 20-60. Becky is right, your axie might be more sensitive to the water conditions. I think (not 100% certain) if your parameters are wrong, that can affect the oxygen levels in the water, I think.

I have had a couple of axies that have died with VERY similar symptoms. The water conditions were, as far as i could tell, normal. What i have been thinking is that either there was an accumulation of wastes other than the usual nitrate, nitrites and ammonia and pH, or that they succumbed to an infection (no visible fungal colonisation or anything like that were present). I would love to hear from anyone with any speculations on what happened, because it has really been baffling... Oh, and O2 perfusion was quite good, my powerhead spits out bubbles quite well, and there is a good surface-volume ratio =)

Well he was upside down this morning so have removed him from the tank this morning and placed him in the fridge. Air pump is more than powerful enough as its suposidly suitable for a tank twice the size (which they were to be moved into in a few weeks when that room was finished decorating), and there's a lack of a partically strong current as the air flow is divided through two air stones to minimise the amount of disturbance created in the water, further aided by the plastic plants and tunnels which should aid in reducing the overal strength of the current. No filter as all of our university tanks for them didn't have them in place so I componsated by doing 20% changes every other day in the first month until the tanks population of bacteria got used to the output of the axolotl and switched to weekly changes. Placing a filter in with them would likely have stressed them out as too water quality. Ammonia and Nitrite are constant 0 most the time with any noticeable increase in these resulting in an immediate water change (nearly never happens). Nitrates typically build up over the week but are typically around 50 according to my testing kit. They're fed on small chunks of squid mantle dayly with any uneaten parts removed at the end of the day (yes I know I should feed them less often, but again Axie at uni were fed daily to observe feeding behaviour). Squid is washed which should remove any excess ammonia in the squids body.

Still no visible physical problems, looked like he wasn't using his left foreleg but alas to spite me he's since started using it since then and seems fairly comfortable in water not deep enough to throw off his bouyancy. (ie. not stressing or curling his gills forward or curling his tail).

Substrate is gravel but is effectively sand as partical size is around 1mm at most.

EDIT: Been keeping an eye on him when I need something from the fridge and when he tries moving he seems to tilt onto his right hand side. In people's experience when something happens to an axolotl's limbs on one side of his body does this seem to affect their swimming? Ie. do they tilt to one side when the loose a leg etc? He's still keeping his head at the surface but has burped a couple of times. Do we have any idea about the placement of an axolotls lungs within its body? As if one of those had too much air in it that would affect bouyancy.

This link may help explain the lung theory. http://www.axolotl.org/biology.htm

Good luk my axolotl is experieng the same symptoms!!??

Well sadly he passed away in the night, he just couldn't control his bouyancy ended up floating down, we placed some plastic leaves from the tanks in so he could grip on something and that seemed to cause him less stress, set him up with an air line in the coldest room in the house last night but alas this morning he was on his back and unresponsive. Just finished burying him with some daffodil bulbs on top so he'll hopefully help those to grow. Its sad but thats just how things went, have inspected the tank today to see if there's anything that could harm my other axie but again nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Thanks for the help guys, still no idea what happened but until i see the lab staff from my old uni in a few weeks to ask their opinion there's likely to be no answer. Hopefully once Ujimitsu is settled into his new tank I can find another axie in need of a home about the same age to keep him company.

On an interesting note, seeing as the tank is one of the coldest rooms of the house and to save on digging out a spare airpump i ran the second line from the main tanks into the container. All the time that Mirabu was still clinging onto the leaf, Ujimitsu sat alongside the tank edge next to the container even though he couldn't see inside due to the lid. He'd moved away by this morning when I found Mirabu dead but he must have spent around 3 hours there in the night whilst i was checking in now and then. Any idea how axies respond to companionship?

I am very sorry for your loss.