Braxmar might have an impaction?

My youngest axolotl Braxmar seems to be showing sings of impaction. She has seemed rather bloated lately and a lot of the time i have seen her lately she has had fecal matter hanging out of her buttock. Her feces is not like the normal oval shape it is not packed together. She is eating fine, earlier tonight she ate an earthworm, but she is not swimming like she usually does and i saw her with both of her back legs elevated off the ground earlier. My only thought is that she might have an impaction. However that boggles my mind considering i have only kept her with sand and a bare bottom tank and i feel like she would have passed any impaction from the pet store considering i have had her since july of 09. Any input as to what you guys think is going on would be appreciated.


I know she doesnt look extremely bulbous by the pictures but I think her stomach seems a little bit too round. Also sadly i didnt catch her with the fecal matter issues i spoke about before. Thanks in advance

I honestly can't see anything wrong with her. She looks lovely and plump, and her gills look beautiful and healthy.

An adult axolotl spends much of its time sitting down the bottom of the tank and doing as little as possible (juveniles tend to be more active). If she was swimming constantly as an adult, this would be a point of concern, as this can be an indicator of stress.

If you think she's a tad fat (I'd have a hard time resisting giving that gorgeous little con artist another worm or two ), you can cut the feeding back, and see how she goes with that.

When doing a poop - the axolotl will tend to raise its hindquarters off the ground.

An axolotl can retain ingested gravel for quite a long time - months on end is not unheard of.

If I may, what does her staple diet consist of? And, what treats (if any) do you give her?

How frequently do you feed her?

The usual signs of impaction are inappetance, and constant floating (ie. the axolotl is unable to touch the ground).

Thank you for your input. Her diet consists of 95% earthworms and as a treat i will give her some quarantined feeder fish. I feed her twice a week usually 1 large earthworm.

So Braxmar has recently regurgitated a worm that i fed her over a day ago. That was the only worm that I fed her. I'm not sure why she did this. I'm used to this happening if overfed but never after a whole day or more. Any information would be appreciated

She does look rather bulbous, but not necessarily ill. How often do you feed her? It may simply be that she has slowed down growing and doesn't need to eat as much or as often as previously. Regurgitating yesterday's worm is odd. Did she get a large amount of feeder fish recently? I would say try giving her a week without food and then resume feeding small amounts of worm - perhaps less than a whole worm per feeding.