Axolotl is VERY grumpy since I changed her tank around

For the first day or two with river rocks in the bottom or her tank instead of gravel, she seemed happy and fine. Now, she doesn't come to the front of the tank when I got in, and 'snaps' at her worms a whole bunch of times, before she finally eats only one (compared to the 3 small mealworms I've been giving her). She also plays possum, like she did when I first got her. (When I first bought her, she used to 'freeze' whenever someone went near her, and act like she was dead for about the first 2 weeks). She also spends a lot of time hiding in her house, which isn't like her at all, she normally only rests in there, or goes in there when I'm changing water, or shifting stuff about. Is she still adjusting (it's been over a week), or does she hate it? I never seem to see her walking about on the rocks, either, she just floats about, or swims when she thinks I'm not looking

You put gravel in the bottom of your tank?

scrappa said:

You put gravel in the bottom of your tank?

Click to expand...

I took the gravel out and put river rocks in. Please don't hate me, I bought her from a petstore, and that's what they told me to put in with her, and they always use it and it's fine, blah blah blah. I realised as soon as I started reading up on axies that the chick at the petstore was wrong (as I've noticed since I joined here, they often are), and changed to rocks.

Hi,

Perhaps the meal worms have caused impaction on munched on her insides and made her ill.

Meal worms are not suitable food and have a bad exoskeleton which is horrible to digest and are poor in nutrients.

Nightcrawlers and garden earthworms are FULL of nutrients and ar much better food sources as meal worms will not sustain an axie for that long.

Im not mad at you lol i just was quick to react because your axie might of eaten it but if the axie still eats a meal worm every day the axie is either very stupid or isnt impacted but please dont feed any more meal worms.

Mabye one a week with a crushed head.

Also what are the water peramiters and mabye the tank is colder than before so the axies metabolism has gone down.

The floating may be a prob but she is probably just letting herself float away.

And she may be scared of you so perhaps the tank is low down so you look big so she doesnt feel confident swimming while you watch her.

I solved the problem, something was very wrong with the river rocks I bought her. I cleaned them so carefully, but it's the only thing I can put it down to.
Anyway .... I checked on her the other morning, and she was trying to leap out of her tank, so I checked on her again a few hours later, and she was sitting very still, and she appeared to have lots of fungus. I honestly thought she was dead for a few minutes, and felt very guilty, because I felt like she was trying to tell me something by trying to leap out of her tank (I didn't think too much of it, because she always does it when I take her out and put her back in)

So I scooped her out straight away, scrubbed the tank from top to bottom, and got rid of the stupid rocks. Within 6 hours, her skin had totally cleared up of the fungus looking stuff, and I could see some shedding skin around her gills and mouth, and a few random spots on her body. She was visibly stressed, and spent a lot of time 'sleeping' (well, I assume she was sleeping, she was very still for hours and hours). I checked on her last at 11pm before bed, and by 10am the next morning, her skin was looking loads better, and she appeared to be interacting with me like she normally does, eg - swimming over to me, and moving about. It's 4pm now, and I can only see a tiny bit of shedding skin around her mouth and gills, she's still flapping her gills a little bit, but her tail is uncurled now, and she seems to be acting a lot more normally.

I'm keeping a very close eye on water quality, and when I check this morning, there was virtually no ammonia and nitrite, and the nitrate reading was incredibly low. The temperature is around 16 degrees, and I'm trying to keep it cool. Is there anything else I should do? Is it ok to feed her, or should I wait until she's acting like she wants food like she normally does? Sorry for all the questions, the health and welfare of my pets is very important to me, and I feel like I screwed up for not realising there was something wrong with the river rocks :sad:

Hi Berrie

It sounds like you are doing the right thing - if you introduce something new to your tank and it seems to have a direct effect on your axie (in a negative way), then it is wise to assume that there is a problem with the new addition and remove it - some rocks can alter PH in a tank, so perhaps something like this may have happened.

I would advise either having a bare bottomed tank or alternately using sand - both of these are easy and cheap to set up, look good and are easy to clean.

In regards to food, here is a page advising of what is and isn't nutritious - it may be worth trying to wean your axie off meal worms and on to earthworms -

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods.shtml

Zoe x

Thanks Zoe, she's happily eating earthworms too, so I've just been giving them to her the last week or so, with the odd mealworm. Her lips (or any of her skin for that matter) aren't flaking at all today, her gills are still, and her tail is straight
She's usually a very enthusiastic feeder, but she's still spending a lot of time resting, so I'm going to try and see if she's interested in an earthworm today, hopefully she feels up to eating. She's using her bowels a lot, so I'm taking that as a good sign