Very sad little leucistic :(

hi stumpy..im not sure about the affects but i imagine they cant be good ..i think you might have to find a vet for wooper...i hope everything turns out ok

lea

You need to remove the axolotls from the tank then and properly cycle it. Your Wooper will do fine in a plastic shoebox in the fridge with bottled spring water until then. That will keep him safe during the Ozzie summer while you get your tank squared away.

Answering these questions for us will help the forum to help you:

What substrate are you using if any?

What temperature is the water?

What do nitrate, nitrite and ammonia test out at?

How hard is the water?

Was the tank ever properly cycled to start? For how long?

What is the water volume of the tank?

How many live animals reside in the tank- including snails, shrimp and the like?

Chorine is mildly toxic, but how toxic totally depends on the concentration. Chlorine dissipates rapidly from standing water, unless it is cold or unless the chlorine is in the form of chloramine (do you know which one you have?).

This may be off-topic, but I'd recommend replacing the refrigerator. Old fridges are major hogs of electricity. New ones are much more efficient. Replacing an old fridge is one of the best energy conservation measures that one can take; much more effective than remembering to turn off room lights, for example. Given the high temps in AU, a new fridge could pay for itself (eventually) just in electrical savings.

New advancement: All three lotls kept in buckets have developed fungal infections, not too serious but enough to warrant twice daily salt baths. Wooper also has developed some, but they're just small so he's getting some tea baths. I don't want to salt bath him in particular, a bit fragile like. He's been in the fridge and an esky, respectively around 7-10*
Also, none of my axolotls are eating now And I still don't have our usual dechlorinator.

@Sludge:
Hehe, there's a chiller on the main tank which is why I was reluctant to switch them out to begin with -- It's been stinking hot here lately. The temperature in there is about 18*C, and in the coldest room in the house it's about 20-21 which is how I've been keeping the others.

There are four axies in about 110L, two of them are about 17cms, and the other two are about 10cms.
I have one golden apple snail in the tank as well, and there are occasionally extra guppies from my breeder tank but they never last more than a few days.

Substrate is black sand of maybe one centimetre thickness, and there are two anubias plants on driftwood and a pot. Wooper however I think is still at risk of impaction, I got him from a petshop about over a month ago and there's been a few sizeable chunks of gravel suspiciously sitting on my sand.

The tank was cycled, I started in about.... september? It was cycled by early november and the water parameters had been keeping steady enough, with weekly changes. we had a significant drop around december which the tank recovered from, (we didn't really know how a filter worked and thoroughly scrubbed it all out vigorously).

@Jen:
Yeah, we're in a market for a new fridge all right. Problem is this is my boyfriend's parent's house, and I'm a second year uni student out of work P: What they say goes~

Also, melbourne's water quality is pretty good, minimal chlorine/chloramine as compared to some areas and probably on the soft side. I don't have any tests, unfortunately. See above situation ^

Purple gills sounds like lack of oxygen, blood turns bluey-maroon when depleted of oxygen, and a rich vibrant red when oxygen hits it. You only ever see red blood dripping from cuts because it picks up oxygen upon hitting the air so most people thing blood is only ever red.

Interesting biology experiment on maemogobin in into to biology is to prick your finger when your arm is sealed into a purged chamber containing 100% nitrogen atmosphere and compare the colour to the blood obtained by prickign your finger in the open air with a oxygen containing atmosphere.

Can you aerate some water and place the axies in that and see if the colours of the gills change? Pour some water from bucket to bucket a dozen or so times so the water splashes in the bucket and lots of bubbles form, let it settle and introduce the axie to the water and watch the gill colour.

Yeah, upon the sight of purple vessels under his skin I didn't think the colour was unnatural, but I certainly don't think it should be displayed as such :/ The thing is, the fimbriae on his gills are a flaming bright red, it's the branches that are purple. Wooper had just about no filaments when I bought him and the shortest branches I'd ever seen -- Now they've grown a little longer, but the filaments virtually exploded onto the branches all at once.

Also, I'd heard that some deep sea fishes' blood is actually copper based, because it can still flow at lower temperatures than the surface water. Apparently they bleed blue!

Oh god, this is really not going well Wooper has died just this morning. I only have my two little wildtypes left! I'm really quite heartbroken, I don't know what I'm doing so wrong... Whilst I hate to say it, I think I maybe knew that wooper was on the way out... but I didn't expect this to take wooper AND Gachomp. Maybe it's not just a fungus? What other things can make an axie float around distressed like? Parasites? Out of my two remaining wildtypes, one is still sick. He's floating about limply in his little icecream tub and doesn't show much sign of improvement. His gills have started to shrink, and still won't even sniff at food, but rather he feebly runs away from it I don't want to lose Gigawhats too :'(

stumpy...im sorry to hear about your babies........i loss my larry a couple of weeks ago........you are doing your best dont doubt yourself..........

lea