Swollen base of gills.

Hi,

I am a little worried about one of my axolotls, the base of his gills (where they connect to his head) have swollen slightly. From where the gills connect to his head to about a quarter of the way towards his eyes there is a circular shaped swelling on both sides.

I have had him for around one month and we bought him in poor condition, out of the six gills (fronds??) he has, only two are as long as they should be (like that from the start). Also when first bought he had hardly any feathers on his fronds (please inform me of the two proper terms for this part of an axolotl). Now they have been slowly growing back but do not seem to be so "fluffy" as a normal axolotls feathers.

He has also been eating less than usual this past week, sometimes he will eat but spits it right back out again. He is looking a bit skinny due to not eating as much as he used to.
Sally (the male) is around 16cm long from nose to tip of tail.

He is housed in around 70L of water with another axolotl the same size (but who is very healthy with an amazing appetite). Neither axolotl have curled tails or forward facing fronds/gills.
pH is between 7.0-7.2
temperature is, I know, a bit high, max 23.5.
No substrate. Poopoo and leftover food is cleaned up as soon as it is noticed.
Water changes of between 10L and 20L per day, with a larger water change (50%) every weekend with API stress coat water conditioned water.
API stress zyme is being used as per the advice on the back of the bottle.
The tank is three weeks old as the previous tank was not large enough and has never had any other animal living in it and was thoroughly cleaned with water and dried before use.
Currently using two in tank filters and an air stone but have an Eheim2213 external canister filter arriving on Monday (it should have arrived on Friday! Grrrrr...).

So I was wondering if anyone could give me some possible causes of swelling at the base of axolotls gills. Is it a type of sickness?

Feel free to comment and give advice on any part of my set-up.

Thank you in advance, I am worried for Sally and would greatly appreciate any help or response.

The swelling, or many other abnormalities can be the result of several different sources. I think in your case, there are a few issues that could contribute to your axie's condition. The size of your water changes can easily cause some issues with your cycle. A daily 15L (which is a 20% water change), and a 50% on the weekend is a total of 150% of the water being changed every week. Slow that down a bit, as you say you take the waste and excess food out on a regular basis. The water temperature can also have quite a bit of an effect, and I would say this is the probable main cause of the gill deterioration. Reducing the water temp will have a large impact on the axies appetite and well-being.

And lastly, the size of the tank is too small for 2 adult axolotls. Having 2 large axies in this small of a tank might cause aggressive behavior, and if you plan on putting a filter that is capable of 440 liters per hour (Eheim 2213), the flow is going to be way too strong.

Hi Salchan,

I've never actually heard/read/seen of the gill base swelling. I do know that the gills are quite sensitive and reactive to the environment, so maybe they are swelling to take in more oxygen in the warmer water? Is it possible for you to post a picture? Do they only look swollen or do they look somehow inflamed, infected? Are they always swollen or do they ebb and grow? Does any other part of the body swell accordingly or otherwise look strange, discolored, inflamed, peeling, etc.?

I agree with Shizeric that the tank is surely too small for your axolotl. Axolotls produce a lot of waste, mainly through their skin, which is something you can't siphon out. There you have to wait for the tank to cycle. While it is cycling (sorry if I am telling you something you already know), levels of toxic ammonia and nitrite can "burn" your animal's skin. In this case, I have to disagree with Shizeric in that water changes are good. Do you have a water test kit (the "dropper" or "test tube" sets, not the dip strips, which lie) ? This would give you a good idea of what is happening in your water quality, which is always the first suspect in axolotl troubles - even seasoned keepers of other newt species are sometimes surprised at the amount of waste (ammonia) that axolotls produce. In a small tank, the toxins can reach damaging levels very quickly - and the only solution I know is water changes.

Maybe if you could manage a picture of your little one, it would be easier for others here to see what's going on?

In any case, good luck to you.

-Eva

Just to address the disagreement. I totally agree that water changes are essential, especially in such a small tank.... but I just thought the rate of the water changes was a bit much. I may very well be wrong.

What are the 2 intank filters you are using? Submersible filters are often responsible for raising the temperature of a tank, so I bet 2 at the same time in a small tank might be raising your temps.

Hi Salchan,

your axies are still juveniles and for the next some weeks your tank is adequate and by doing daily water changes and a big water change once a week, you reduce the toxins to a minimum to keep your axies healthy. So, in my eyes, your doing a good job.
But for the future, when your axies grow up, your tank is too small and you should upgrade the tank.

From the view of an axie you cannot do too much water changes. You can keep an axie in a tank by doing 100% water change each day and the axies feels best in these good conditions. But for the cycling process too much water changes can debilitate (?) the development of the good bacteria, so you would hardly get a full cycled tank (stable water conditions).

Thank you for your quick replies.

Previously Sally had been fed axolotl pellets and frozen blood worms by his original owner (pet shop) however this past week he did not seem interested in the pellets at all and would only eat blood worms but as I have read that blood worms should not be a staple in an axolotls diet and the fact that he is looking quite skinny I was/am a bit worried. Today I purchased some earthworms and he really seemed to like them. Which was really encouraging to see. Could it be that he simply does not want to eat pellets any more? Interestingly my other axolotl did not seem to like the worms movements and only ate one before running away from the next worm offered to him (I feed them all of there food by using long tweezers/feeding forceps).

I have plans to reduce the water temperature in the near future by setting up a cooling system similar to example 5 at this link:
Caudata Culture Articles - Cooling
This combined with taking the two internal power filters from the tank and an addition of a cooling fan should bring my temperatures down. I have been using a large household fan on hotter days but this is not economical to have running all the time (55 watts). However before I can set up a system like ex.5 I need to wait for my external canister filter to arrive which should be tomorrow (Monday).

My choice of an Eheim 2213 was made because my tank has very little surface area for good bacteria to grow. I have no substrate, no "show piece", it is almost (apart from a hide which they never use apart from to sit on top of) a bare tank. Compared with a fish tank, an axolotl tank such as mine has an amazingly minuscule surface area for bacteria to grow on but axolotls produce a much larger amount of ammonia. If the flow of the Eheim 2213 is too strong, I have many ideas on how I can distribute the flow of the filter so as to cause no stress to my axolotls.

The tank is 90cm (3ft.) long and 30cm (1ft) wide. It is capable of holding 80L (approx. 21 Gallons) and so I estimate they would actually be housed in 70L-75L of water. This will increase slightly with the canister filter and the piping used to create my cooling set up. I understand that axolotls can grow quite large however at their current size (16cm from nose to tip of tail) and the tanks population density (2 axolotls) is their housing adequate for the time being? Approximately how long will it take before they outgrow their tank?

Sally's gills were badly damaged before I purchased him, I knew that he was in poor condition however I have not seen his colour before in Adelaide (the city where I live) and so I had to have him. I found out today that all of his other tank mates perished. The tank which he came from now has two small juveniles ~9cm both with poor gills.

BlueBerlin it makes sense that they could be swelling to take in more oxygen because of the warmer water and also because of his lack of feathers (?) on his fronds (?), it does seem strange that it is at the base though. Out of his six fronds (?) only 3 of them are large enough to grow feathers (?). The other three seem to have been bitten off (or fell off perhaps?) almost where they connect to his head. Sally does gulp air from the surface but this is rare, 1 time every 5 or 10 minutes. My other axolotl never gulps air from the surface (very long fronds with full fluffy feathers bought from a different pet shop, I have noticed that his fronds have grown longer and he a denser amount of feathers since I bought him). I have been looking at a lot of wild type pictures (Sally is a gold with gold spots wild type, I think!) and it seems that they do tend to have a raised section where their gills/fronds connect to their head. My other axolotl has a very flat head. Anyone have any more information on this? Facial differences between non wild and wild types?

Thank you again for all of your replies, every single one is greatly appreciated. I am very new to the axolotl world and I am very much on my "axolotl learners licence". If I am incorrect in anything I have said please be quick to correct me, if you can see any problem with my set up or any of my processes please inform me. I would be extremely grateful for any information or ideas you can share with me.