Illness/Sickness: Bleeding Gills - Please Help!

Hi Everyone - I have searched for this thread but answers given do not seem to relate....

We have one axolotl who is bleeding from the gills. She was perfectly healthy, with large fluffy gills and started to float yesterday. Now her gills are deteriorating and bleeding.
Water parameters are fine, is cool enough, her tank mates are fine and she has not injured herself or been nipped. No fungus or any other signs of disease. There is nothing sharp in the tank and we do not use substrate.
We have 24 axolotls and well over 1000 litres of water over several tanks, which we maintain every day. We are not newbies and have been breeding successfully for a couple of years and have never seen this before.
Very worried about our girl - any experts out there with any other suggestions? We are fridging her now....

Picture attached

I read a post recently with possibly something similar :-
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...f58-sick-axolotl/73026-bleeding-axolotls.html

I think keeping your axolotl cool and calm are the logical answer, please do keep us posted .

Thanks Julia
I read that post - It delves into neighbour not caring for them properly and then fungus care...not really helpful

Not sure why the post was closed, but hopefully this will open it.

Do you use feeder fish? Maybe it's gill flukes along with a nasty secondary bacterial infection.

I had a similar problem, all my axolotls were kept in the same filter system as fish at the pet store. They would randomly have parts of the gills just disappear, seemingly fall off over night then grow back just as fast. No fluffy white fungus to be see! And salt baths didn't help! My golden sunny actually died before I could figure it out. They all seem fine now *fingers crossed*

API general cure works on skin and gill flukes.
Active ingredients: 250mg metronidazole, 75mg praziquantel per packet

Platterpus said:

Thanks Julia
I read that post - It delves into neighbour not caring for them properly and then fungus care...not really helpful

Click to expand...

To me at least, it seems very similar. They don't think it has to do with neighbor care as they weren't left alone that long anyways and the neighbor has taken care of them before. It seemed more like something in the water affecting them. The fungus arose as the gills were falling off, leaving open wounds where fungus can easily take hold, which could end up happening to yours as well.

Gill flukes may be a strong possibility, but could be another type of infection or parasite. Hopefully you can find a remedy to help stop further damage.