Axolotl swim up for air.

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MartinBr

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I have sometimes noticed my axolotls swimming to the surface and gulped for some air. Why do they do this? is it natural?
 
Unless they do it every 1 minute then it seems to be normal behavior. Mine do it sometimes. It's almost like they do it as buoyancy compensation mechanism. My Axolotls sometimes do it and then "float" around on the Pothos vines I have in my tanks. They will also belch out a bubble when they want to go back down. :rolleyes:
 
I think it's cute as hell! to see little bubbles coming out of their mouth's as they float down to the bottom :)

But yes totally normal, unless it's [as mac has said] too frequent.
 
I agree with the posts above.
I once had an axolotl in a temporary tank. There wasn't any filter or anything else in there and they were swimming up for air every minute.

My axolotls normally don't do that often.
One of my axolotls likes to swim up, swallow some air, make a 'backflip' (somehow) and swim back to the bottom followed by some air bubbles coming out of her mouth.
Cute.
 
yes that is completely normal. Belive it or not although axolotls stay larval they do develop rudimentary lungs and occasionally can be seen rising to the surface of the water to fill these lungs. That is what you are seeing here.
like everyone else has said as long as it is not to often your axolotl is fine.

Brad:cool:
 
One of my axies comes up for air quite often as well...maybe once every five minutes or so...he's a wild type and is young and unlike his golden albino brother, he has stumpier gills.

Now i can assume he comes up more often than the golden because of the gill size right? He isn't coming up too often is he?

Perhaps he just enjoys it :)
 
My axie comes up for air about every 5 min. or so also. Specially when he is eating. Is this normal? And do my axies gills look stumpy? Hes a juvenile im guessing somewhere around 3-4 months old about 4 inches in length.
 
That sounds like mine... but what should i do if she's taking air every 40 - 60 seconds?

Was that a problem?
 
STNnexion and Purplepaj if you could please post your water parameters we might be able to get an idea of what's going on. =]
 
They do tend to come up more often if their gills are smaller because there is less surface area for gas exchange. Sometimes its to use their lungs sometimes its just to get closer to the surface where there is more oxygen penetrating the water. Unless there are other signs of stress, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
 
My axolotl started doing this alot, at least once every 1 or 2 minutes. It's only been going on for about an hour now, what do I do? He has regular sizes gills, but he's missing one on the left side, it's a birth defect, it didn't get cut off. He's never done it this frequently tho.
 
AxiStack said:
My axolotl started doing this alot, at least once every 1 or 2 minutes. It's only been going on for about an hour now, what do I do? He has regular sizes gills, but he's missing one on the left side, it's a birth defect, it didn't get cut off. He's never done it this frequently tho.
Click to expand...

First thing to do is to rule out water quality issues so check all your parameters. Has anything been changed recently that could be upsetting your axolotl?
 
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