Question: Common causes of red in pigment?

I woke up this morning to my healthy axie having a red spot on his left side. It seems that it is in the pigmentation, and could possibly be an internal bleed. What are some common causes of this?

There is nothing in the tank that he could have bumped into. It's a one gallon tank, half full with no filtration. He also does not show any signs of stress. No forward or curling of gills, no curling of tail or fin. He swimming around a lot with a nice and fluent speed. A 60% water change was last night before going to bed. And he's eating just fine.

HI Kib0y,

If your axolotl is in a 1-gallon tank, I assume he is small? Maybe still a larva? (How long is he?) If he is a larva, could it be that you are seeing the contents of his stomach?

Otherwise, a red spot that suddenly appears sounds suspicious to me. I would not want to venture a guess as to its cause without seeing it first, though - is it possible for you to post a photo?

How long have you had him?

Good luck to you,

-Eva

blueberlin said:

HI Kib0y,

If your axolotl is in a 1-gallon tank, I assume he is small? Maybe still a larva? (How long is he?) If he is a larva, could it be that you are seeing the contents of his stomach?

Otherwise, a red spot that suddenly appears sounds suspicious to me. I would not want to venture a guess as to its cause without seeing it first, though - is it possible for you to post a photo?

How long have you had him?

Good luck to you,

-Eva

Click to expand...

Yes, he is small. I don't know if it is the larva stage still. He has fully developed and functional front limbs. The hind limbs are still small but showing digits, not near functional yet. I'm not sure of the exact age of the axie, but I would venture no less than 6-7 weeks old? This spot is not the underbelly content within the stomach, I'm pretty familiar with that. I got a picture of him but it isn't definitive of the spot. The spot now has diminished in intensity in color since I have fed him. Again there were no signs of stress really other than this defined spot. I will show you a photo of the location. It was found more in the nephron region, on the side of the axie. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any bacterial or fungal situations going on here, that was my main concern.

I can't really see the spot.. but there could be several possibilities. The likeliest is that you are seeing an internal organ through the translucent skin.

Axies do not produce 'red pigments'. The closest are the yellow pigements (xantophores) which at best gives its an orange apperance rather than red.

A defined red spot on the skin surface could be bleeding from fine blood vessels that is confined only to the skin dermal layer. Most often, blood spots (petechiation/ecchymoses) are due to bleeding defects such as platelet formation malfunction, coagulopathy or an inflammation of the vessels (vasculities, phlebitis). There are many causes to this including toxicity, malnutrition and infections such as scepticaemia where bacterial toxins in the blood cause an inflammation of the vessels.

Bleeding is very unlikely to be from a ruptured visceral organ as iIn this case, the bleeding will be quite extensive and pool around the body cavity such as the abdomen. It would be way beyond just a single red spot.

It sounds as though it is normal colouration for a larva, the fact that it lessened after you fed it makes sense to me. My logic - the larva was thinner because it was due food, therefore the skin was nearer the internal organs, once it was fed the belly filled out and the skin was further from the organs, therefore you can't see them so well. Does that make sense?

I know when my larvae were tiny you could see very clear red spots on the side of each one!

Definitely makes sense, with both explanations. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything serious. There weren't any signs of stress when I observed him so I didn't take it into too much concern. I was just making sure since I'm new to the whole axie thing.

As mentioned in my earlier post, the likeliest is that you are merely seeing an internal organ throught the translucent skin. If there are no other signs of stress or illness, i wouldn't worry too much.