Photo: Is this common and/or anything to worry about?

My leucistic female has now laid 3 batches of eggs in the past 2 years and I noticed a 'vein' protruding out from behind the gills on the right side after her second batch last year.

Now... my golden female laid her first batch in May this year and now she has now developed two 'vein threads' from behind her right gills.

I have posted a photo and its close-up below for reference.

All aquarium conditions are fine and have always been, but these have simply appeared since they have laid eggs. My other female has not yet laid and has no such behind-the-gill protrusions.

Both affected females have not been affected in any other way so are eating, behaving and moving around normally.

As these have definitely occured post egg laying I wondered whether there was anything to worry about or whether anyone has seen this before?

I have seen this before, twice actually. Though I've never heard it connected to or after laying. A friend of mine has an axolotl with these weird 'loops' on the back of the gills and there was also a thread a little while ago with someone asking about it, but I don't think any conclusion was made.

im not sure what the problem is or what caused it.
but it looks like to me that two of the little things that come off the axies gill
(not sure what there called)
are very swollen, i would guess due to the increase of blood pressure during pregnancy of the axie would of caused blood to pool in these areas as this is where they breath from?
but im no expert so i could be wrong.

They are harmless. There are capillary beds in the gill fimbriae. Sometimes, overt regeneration results in a thickened fimbriae loop being formed.

In some instances, blood pooling/congestion in a gill can also cause a distention to the vessel. There are no 'valves' in the gill vessels so its not the same as 'varicose veins' but the concept of increased pressure/congestion in a vessel causing distention is similar.

The picture looks like her skin isn't smoothe. Is her skin (wrinkly) or is it just an artifact of the picture? When axies lay eggs a lot of protein is put in the water. Their is also more stress placed on the axolotl. After I collect the eggs I clean up the tank and do a massive water change. This takes the extra biomass out of the water. If you don't do a huge water change water quality can go down hill and affect the axies skin and gills.

This could be part of the cause. Then again maybe not.

Thanks everyone,

Her skin is smooth all over except for her head which has always been bobbly since I bought her from a pet shop when she was about 8 months of age.

I do increased water changes after egg laying and the water remains fine. On the one occasion I mentioned when I took her out to lay I slowly reintroduced more water from the aqaurium before putting her back in with the others.

She has the dark colouration patches on her face and I assumed her very slight 'bobbliness' was part of that. All of my other axolotls are smooth all over.

Thank you Darkmaverick. Do you think any harm would come to her if this were to be bitten/severed by another axolotl? That's been a slight worry for me as it looks quite open to attack.

i would consider this low risk. It really shouldn't be much of an issue.

Ray, is it kind of like a little gill-hemorrhoid that she got when pushing out the eggs?

This issue pops up from time to time. Here is a thread where I compiled some older threads on the subject. This issue seems to be relatively harmless.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52757

Yes Dawn, in a way. Im strangely always associating you with haemorrhoids and prolapses now.