Very sick axolotl with missing limb

Hey

about a week and half ago i noticed one of my axolotls was missing a limb. i hve removed him from the tank with the other axolotls and put him in a container in the fridge out back with a tempt around 5- 10 degrees celcious.

I cant remember the last time i saw him eat even when he was in the tank. his body is much smaller than the width of his head and he is a lot smaller than the two other axolotls.

I can get him to eat and he is sort of motionless in the container unless really proded.

when i found him i though i saw fungus, white cotton wool like around the are, this has since disappeared however now there is like a white thing coming out from where the leg should be. imagine like a little grass shoot at the root, its white and solid and maybe half to a cm long.

im wondering if this his leg regrowing?

i have been putting him in a mild salt bath and leaving him in the fridge.. any suggestiong on what else i can do? or maybe how to get him to eat?\\


thanks

I'm glad the fungus is gone the salt baths helped no doubt.
According to axolotl.org you're doing everything you can for your little guy. Keeping him cool and away from the others.
Wounds and Phyiscal Damage

The second category of problems is physical damage, such as loss of a gill or limb, or fin damage. Problems like this usually heal well, as long as the wound doesn't become infected. If an animal is wounded like this, it should be kept on its own in clean, cool water. 100% Holtfreter's solution can be used to reduce the chance of infection, or one can use a teaspoon of salt in 2 litres of water as a substitute. Strangely, wound healing seems to occur more rapidly at lower than normal temperatures. One would assume that the relatively higher metabolic rate caused by a higher temperature would result in faster healing, but this doesn't seem to be the case in axolotls. Lower temperatures (5-15 °C) seem to be a general panacea for axolotls. Sometimes axolotls and larval tiger salamanders are bullied by tank mates in pet shops and can lose most of their gills and some of their limbs. This may seem horrible, but they usually recover quite well if kept well fed, cool, and in good conditions.


I'm guessing what you're seeing is just his leg regrowing again but keep an eye on it just in case it's something else.
Found this which is pretty cool :happy:




I wouldn't expect him to be eating a whole lot in the fridge as his metabolism has slowed down. He's not using as much feed to make energy because he's cold and not moving much so he doesn't eat as much but there are exceptions and I'm sure someone will jump in here, there always is, and tell you that their axie eats just fine in the fridge but it seems to be down to each axie.
You could try taking him out of the fridge and letting him warm back up for a while and see if that improves his appetite.

Good job with taking care of that fungus. As MereB (nice animation!) suggests, you can warm him back up and return him to his tank. Keep an eye on him, watch out for aggression - don't need him to lose another limb. Once you return him to his normal temp, his appetite should pick back up.

It takes a lot of energy to regen a limb as you can imagine, so definitely try to get him eating. If he is considerably smaller than his tankmate(s), then I would keep him separately for a while until he regains some weight, regens the leg, and catches up. Just be aware that smaller bodies of water will be more difficult to keep cool.

I would make every attempt to keep him out of the fridge though (now that the fungus is gone), a fridge slows down metabolism - meaning he won't eat as much if at all and it could take him a bit longer to regen a leg.