Illness/Sickness: Hey guys i think i my axie is very ill i need your help

JellyBones

JellyBones

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:(Hey everyone i have a 1 month old axolotl she is have been having some issues.She has been floating on and off for a little over a week now.She is pretty small and i am not using a filter in her tank yet because i am scared to put her in too big of a tank.So i do daily water changes she was doing fine and was on a good diet and i kept her at the required temperature for axolotls....Then sometime last week she puked..all of her food..Maybe 30 min after feeding her..I got really scared..So i got online and found your site.I have been useing distilled water from the store along with her derchlorinator.Now i tried fridging her and it worked and 2 days later she was floating again..This has been happening over and over i fridge her and shes fine and..Now i fridged her and shes still floating but now on her side. she puked and pood while she while she was in the fridge but she is still eating...Its weired and i dont know what to do with her and im scared she may die...

=[
 
sorry for the questions...What is the water temp, the water parameters, what are you feeding him/her and what you are using on the bottom of your tank..
When you fridge your axie you only need to use enough water to cover him/her.

You might want to post this in axolotl section so other members(who are more experienced that me) will be able to help.
lea
 
your axie is 1 month old, young axies love to float, it's normal, they float all the time when they're younger.


What substrate do you have her on?
what are the perimeters? - nitrates, nitrites and ammonia ect
what temperature is the tank water? [the tank you keep her in normally]
what are you feeding her?
does she look stressed? [gills forward, curled tail]

sorry for all the questions, but we need to find out what's wrong first.
 
Answers to all the questions above will be needed for an opinion of course, but i have a couple of questions.

1 Why a smaller tank over a bigger one? A larger tank will be easier to maintain water quality

2 Why are you cautious of using a filter? Again, easier to maintain water quality, and if the flow is not too much i dont see how it can be harmful

3 Why distilled water? Some smarter people than me might be able to confirm for us, but wont distilled water be far to soft for axies? The wrong general hardness for axies can be harmful. I'd just use dechlorinated tap water at a minimum, and even then test it for hardness, the water in my town is very soft, i have to test and adjust it about every two water changes.

have a good long look and read around this site, there is a lot of great help around

Bren
 
sorry to hear about your axie. I would suggest a small tetra 3i filter or some little simple sponge filter - this would help you with fewer water changes. I would also suggest simply treating your tap water with a good dechlorinator like Aquasafe, Prime, or AmQuel+ as I agree, the distilled water is not suitable. Stability is key with the little ones and keep it simple. If you don't already have the drop test kits for pH, Ammonia, nitrite/nitrate - you need them. Axolotls don't like ammonia, the pH needs to be stable (they handle a wide range, but it still needs to stay stable), nitrites can be dangerous and rising nitrates could be another sign of something going on...You say the temp is fine so just so you know, 16-19 C is the recommended range.

As also stated, the little ones love to float about and are sometimes clumsy about it. The thing to look for is if he/she has trouble getting back to the bottom? If you have one who prefers floating, maybe some nice tall plants (artificial are fine) for him/her to take a rest on.

A bare bottom is fine for him/her right now as sand can cause impaction at this tiny size.

As also previously asked, what are you feeding him/her? I had mine on frozen bloodworms at this age but was careful to remove all uneaten worms after 20 min.
 
Distilled water is a bad idea. It causes added stress to the animal, as their body has to work extra to keep their fluids in balance. Consider using spring water, but check the pH before using it. See:
Caudata Culture Articles - Bottled Water for Amphibians
Is there something drastically wrong with your tap water? It's OK to use in most cases.

It's normal for an axie to puke if they eat too much at once. That symptom alone wouldn't worry me.
 
hey guys Yeah when i have her in the fridge i only use enough water to cover her i have been using tap and distilled to soften the water more bc i live in a city and its hard to maintain the right levels.I have been feeding her bloodworm's and soft pellets.I have kept
and the small tank was because i was scared of a filter stressing her out.I feel awful and she has a bubble on her left side and she has been floating on her side..The bubble has gotten bigger then yesterday..Also i don't use a substrate.But when i was using a substrate, i don't know that i would really call it that because i was using these large flat beach glass rocks(i boiled and let them cool) to kill anything that could be on them..She was doing well with those i just used them so she had some grip.At the bottom..I feel horrible and im a wuss and cried when i woke up to check on her and see that her symptoms seemed to be worse..

i feel horrible and im going to the store right now to get a larger tank,testers and a filter
 
umm maybe it was the rocks that were on the beach and were salty?

And the distilled water messing the chemistry

Can't you use normal tap water with dechlorinator? I don't think the small tank is an issue, specially if she's still a little one...
 
I wonder what the bubble on her side might be. Maybe you can post a pic of that too.

Anyway. I always thought the water parameters remain more stable in a bigger tank than in a small one. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm also still learning ;)
 
Morrison said:
Anyway. I always thought the water parameters remain more stable in a bigger tank than in a small one. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm also still learning ;)
Click to expand...

You're correct.....a larger volume of water will remain more stable than a smaller volume.....the bigger the better!

Also, as has been said, forget distilled water altogether.

Bottled spring water/natural mineral water can be bought cheaply enough......I use treated tap-water in my tanks mainly, with the addition of natural organic mineral water which I always have handy ( I re-use the bottles to make home-made plant cloches!)

(I'm doing some tests on 3 major brands (in UK) of bottled water at the moment.
I've taken the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite,and Nitrate readings (x2) of the samples straight from the bottle, now I need to test the samples after being left 'open' for a week.
I'll start a new thread when I've got all the readings.)

In addition, if you could post some photos of the 'bubble' that would help.

All the best, KW
 
Hey guys we bought a tank,filter we had dechlorinator and we bought ph reducer bc the levels were at 8.5 i just put the reducer in the tank now and im letting the filter run a while and then i will test it again and try to get some pics up the nitrates read at 0 uhmm i think thats good right? i dunno the test says safe at 0 and caution at 0.5 and worse things as it goes up..

so i think its alright i will post some pics up and give a new reading for the ph levels
 
I am not sure if the photos attached but here they are if they did.the bubble is on her side right below her liver or heart not sure exactly what that is but the bubble kinda wraps around to her tummy =[
 

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umm I think the tank is not cycled, that's why your nitrates read 0

the ideal is to have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrates, PH around 7 (from 6.5 to 8)
I guess yours is a little high, but I'm unsure about adding chemicals for it... maybe it's better if you can mix distilled with regular tap water plus dechlorinator...

is the little guy hungry at all?
 
Yeah shes eating a combination of soft pellets,bloodworms and now i started on brine shrimp shes eating fine..And i am using spring water and tap water because the spring water i bought had very hig ph levels im letting the tank cycle now she is still in the fridge.Oh as for the rocks they came from lake Michigan so theres no salt.also i boiled them! so there are no living organisms on them so i know it is not that also i have been using dechlorinator.....
 
Oh man i dunno whats going on because i was thinking more and more about her situation..She was floating one day and fine after i fridged her and then it happend eavry other day...Now she has pooped 3 times today ;:errr:

so im really upset i feel horrible for my poor jelly
 
oh yeah sorry cloudy no her gills arnt forward and her tail is not curled :/
 
Hello,

Sorry to hear about your axolotl. As for her pooing a lot, how much are you feeding her? Since she's only small, don't over feed her or she will poo.... Pooing is not bad (better out than in, right?)

Throwing up is a sure sign of overfeeding her, so try and lessen the amount a bit.

As for the gas bubble around her, air bubbles under the skin can result from supersaturation of the water with gas... prevented by aging tap water before use. It almost sounds like your dechlorinator isn't doing it's job. Also, why are you using spring water because it has a high pH? The ideal pH for an axolotl is 6-7, it's usually about that in water so I wouldn't worry too much about pH right now.

You've got to get your hands on a filter for your tank, water changes simply aren't enough. What is the size of your tank?

Best of luck
 
maybe the bubble is because you are overfeeding

I would try not feeding her for a day, keep her with the water at a low level and tap water, with dechlorinator and aged overnight at least.

If she eats and poos its a good sign

Maybe you are overfeeding?

how big is she? how much are you feeding her?
 
It seems everyone has there own ideas on what could be wrong with her not that thats bad..But if you read what i have said in my last replies you will get all of your ansures that u just asked...I am useing spring water because my tap is not sutible it is too hard and the ph is the same while the spring water was not to hard and the ph was still bad so i am treating the ph..I have a filter in a 10 gallon tank i just bought for her to see if it helps..I have let it run over night i am going to let it run 1 more night. I am clueless what to do anymore because eavryone is giveing me somthing different i now know what i should do but then i am asked why are you doing that? well i was just told to do that o.o... so please read what is going on before asking me anything more..I am getting the same question i have anusred and i am very confused and upset...
 
I'm sorry that you are upset, if anything I said has upset you I definitely didn't mean to do that. You are definitely trying your best and none of us to expect you to know everything (we don't either!)

I understand about your spring water now, I am sorry we are all confusing you. Just stick to what you are doing and if anything gets worse or changes let us know, we all just want you and your axie to feel better.

Best of luck.
 
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