Illness/Sickness: Old-timer Axolotls acquired, stressed at night, images of oddities

Hi everyone,

I'm not very good at being brief, but I'm going to give it a very good shot.

Background

I used to own two (adult) axies 8 years ago, they were very easy to care for - I think because there was very little light in my bedroom, so bad things couldn't flourish. I never had to buy a water-testing kit, think about substrate or anything - two adults on large river-rock substrate, content and happy for 2 years. I moved cities, so I donated Pinkie and Blackie to my old primary school.

Now

I've just acquired two new old-timers - my guess at their age would be minimum 5 years, because of their individual character and personality (which is awesome!) and the wear-and-tear on the chaps. They came with a big tank (1.2m length), no filtration, and filthy pebble substrate - yes the block-their-intestines kind

Two wild types, one male, one female. Both with extremely poor (short, stubby) gills and eating habits when I got them ~8 weeks ago. Male (Maxy) has some spots on his face, and female (Faxy) with badly regenerated limbs (front ones with 1 toe instead of normal, rear right with 7 toes, rear left with 2) and blind in left eye. So safe assumption: damaged axies, living in very poor conditions = bad regeneration when young.

Since then, gills are slowly regenerating, apetite is good and they're excellent at hanging out.

The Problems

However about 1 week ago, Maxy started having "night terrors". Gills severely curled forward, and trying to swim "out" of the tank. I did a 1/3 water change, he calmed down. The next night: same deal, it was extremely distressing to see him so worked up.

So I started reading, got a water testing, and was shocked at the results. Ammonia is way up: at least 6.0ppm, and I have no nitrate or nitrite (like, 0ppm). So, 8 weeks on, and even with use of Stress Zyme for good bacteria: I have nil biological filter

I went and obtained Ammo-Lock to stop the high ammonia from hurting them anymore; basically I only intend on doing this while I get my biological filtration sorted. Not sure whether it has worked very well - there is still less thrashing around, but Maxy's gills are still forward-pointing at night. I have a lot to learn here, but I'll get there.

I love these guys already, and I desperately want them to see out their remaining years in peace. Here is my plan - any help would be greatly appreciated:

1. Change substrate to sand, with river-rock hidey-holes. No more poop / food waste in places I can't reach
2. Retain as much of the current water from this existing setup
3. Learn more about creating a biological filter; get a good filter pump when finances allow
4. Get advice about their specific ailments!

I'm most unsure about #2 - with such poor water quality, am I better to just start again? I'm going to test nitrate and nitrite again tomorrow, but I don't really expect it to be much better.

The Pictures / Ailment Identification Help Please!

These images took patience to be able to get, but I think they're worth it!

This is the newest addition; minimal white skin flakes on Maxy's side. Also note the green smudge that has been there since I got them; what sort of disease is this, or is it normal?



Maxy has had these head-spots since I got him. Doesn't mean they're OK: are these fungal or parasitic?



Maxy and Faxy both have their extremeties going slightly white / grey at the very tips. A bad sign, or a sign of re-growth?



I think that Faxy has had the hardest life of the two, although healthiest of the two at the moment. Is this tail colouring normal, or is it some sort of disease?



Here is a shot of Faxy's face: just noticed a slight mucous around her mouth / nostrils - not much but is still fairly strange - not sure if Axies can get colds? Also, spot her excellent bung eye.



Anyway, I know this has been a very long post, but any advice or assistance in identifying these ailments especially would be very helpful, or any advice about how I can be a better Dad to the axies, in terms of tank setup or establishing a good biological filter - I know I have some reading to do here anyway

With how stressful it is seeing my dude freaking out and being intensely stressed, hoping that I can get some help from what looks to be an excellent community!

Those guys have taken a battering but the good news is that with the right care you have a good chance of saving them as axolotls are good at regenerating.
1) Your tank cycle has crashed, you need to do a daily water change until you get 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite less than 40ppm nitrate.
2)The white tips on the fingers look like newly regenerated toes, axolotls lose toes by tank mates or unhygenic conditions, bacterial build up intanks "rots" toes.
3) The "battle scars", lol, thats axolotls for you, they look like old healed wounds, just keep an eye out for fungus/inflamation.
4)The bad eye could be damaged (may be blind), or a bacterial infection.
5)The green/mossy bits may be part of the normal colouring, i cant tell from the picture, axolotls display a wide range of colouring. Does this colour stand proud on the skin or does it look like its dyed, if it looks dyed its probally ok(hedging my bets there)
6)The white flakes and mucous could be fungus and may require salt baths and fridging, check out the threads for that, though dont take my word for the diagnosis as im not too familiar with fungus, im sure you will get a more accurate diagnosis of other people.
7)Dont worry about retaining current water as your cycle is not working, saving some water from a cycled tank is good practice when doing a major clean or moving a tank.
8)Losing gravel= excellent idea.
Good luck, your bound to get other responses for the medical conditions but check out the appropriate threads on fungus, bacterial infections, tank cycling and fridging.

Can someone who knows what they are doing give advice on the medical side of this post, this guys doing his best but needs a hand. So stop reading and start typing!!

Ian covered mostly everything but I was also just going to mention: could it be possible the white-tipped toes are just their mature toes?
My black melanoid has white-tipped toes, I'm not really sure how they'd look on a wild-type though.

Axolotls - Biology

In wild type and melanoid animals the toe tips become slightly paler than the rest of the body, at maturity, but it is harder to see than in the lighter colour variants.

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But that could just be wishful thinking, as obviously they were kept in some terrible conditions before they ended up in your possession.
I hope you can sort them out and they will live long and prosperous lives

I think Ian covered it well.

Search in this forum for "Nitrogen cycle" and also www.axolotl.org good info around, including pics.

You have no cycle, water is not particularrly good at "holding" bacteria, so keeping the water is irrelevant, you need to build up the bacteria on tank surfaces and a filter - just so you know, this will take 4-6 weeks at a minimum when you get the filter, this is not a few days process.

So in the meantime keep up the water changes everyday - 20-30%

Check the tank temp, it needs to be consistently lower than 21 celcius - again, search the forum for tips on "cooling tank"

Just having cool, clean water will fix a myriad of problems.

Ignore the battle scars, they look ugly, but wont be a problem unless the animal is run down, in warm or dirty water in which case they might get a fungus.

The marks are a bit of a concern, as is the mucus. If the tank temp is high, that can increase the risk of fungus, and can effect the mucus layer.

My plan would be -

* Get the tank cycled with a filter - religious 20-30 % water changes and spot cleaning in the meantime
* Get a ton of live plants in there to help with waste and surface area for bacteria
* Make sure the tank is cool - below 17-18 celc ideally
* Watch the mucous / markings carefully. Hopefully the better water and temp will simply fix it. If they get worse (and that can happen quick apparently) salt or tea baths might be in order (search the forum a great tutorial)

I'd love to offer more detailed advice about the possible skin / fungus issues, but i'm not an expert as luckily i've never had to deal with them, i had healthy axies and good advice right from the start.

Bren

Thank you all so much for your help - really appreciate the advice.

Temperature will not be an issue - I'm in New Zealand and the climate is ridiculously temperate (a hot day is 25c outside). This could be part of the reason why axies can be kept in such poor conditions in NZ!

I still need to get plants as recommended, to assist in bacterial growth. However much has changed about their environment, but the same issues with Maxy are around. These are the actions which have been taken in the last week:

1. Replaced the river stone substrate with sand
2. Cleaned the tank thoroughly
3. New filter with more room for bacteria growth (1000L/hr, air output, directed towards back of tank)
4. More aeration of the water, with minimal water flow (rippling on top of water, ~1/6 of tank surface - too much?)
5. Performing 25% water changes each day

And the situation still isn't improving - for at around 50% of each day, Maxy is gills curled forward, agitated, and doing regular swims-out-of-the-surface. This is also evidenced by the corners of the tank being "swept" clear of sand. He has no appetite during these episodes (which last between 4 - 12 hours), but tends to eat when everything is OK.

Things I've noticed in the past week:

• The rocks I was originally using as substrate had red / iron streaks in them Now all removed.
• The episodes have nothing to do with day / night / light / startling
• I've noted some damage at the back of his tail - does this look like it could be parasitic? The 2 spots are also of concern. (image below) Tail was a big "jagged" when I got him, but I'm unsure whether this has gotten worse
• The black spots in particular look to be "proud" of his skin, only by a little - but still.
• The amount of poop at the bottom of the tank is low - I'd say that possibly only the female axie is - but that is a guess. I'd say, 3 poops in the past 6 days.

One time when he was having a particularly bad time trying to get "out" of the water, I scooped him up with my hands and out of the water - he immediately settled in my hands, hung out for 5 seconds or so, then tried to walk off so I put him back in. Is it possible that he is trying to metamorphise? I haven't done this since, but seeing him go out of his mind makes me kinda go outta mine.

The tank is currently showing 0.5 - 1ppm of ammonia, 6.4 ph, nil nitrite / nitrate. 25% change about 7 hours ago.

I also snapped a quick video of one of the lesser panics. Yup, it gets worse than this Maxy Panic on Vimeo Excuse the over-brightness, iPhone video etc.

Any more help or advice whatsoever would be greatly appreciated - I'm unsure what the next step is if things don't improve!

I am no expert, but seeing and reading all this leaves the following course of action if you ask me
You should really give your axie a saltbaths, it's not hard and the sticky tutorial here makes it easy to follow the steps
Aspecially watch the dechlorinated water and stuff like that, perfect water equals faster healing
Then at thesame time fridge your axies, this helps get rid of constipation and again aids in the healing process
In the meanwhile you got time to perfect the water in your tank, make sure you seperate the axies when fridging them, don't put them all in 1 bowl, and put a towel over them!, I made that mistake, and they really panic from the fridgelight when you comin to get a soda
Once you got no axies in your maintank, get the nitrate cycle underway, I do this in 2 weeks with a bacteria starter and bacteria aid, 2 components to speed up bacteria that grow inside your filtersponge
In most filtersponges there is a little bit of charbon, this helps get rid of chloride and ammonia
When your done witht he water it should smell like a river, not a sewer
Lot's of plants ofcourse... but that has been said

As it comes to the conclusion why your axie is in panic, I think he's just sick, judging from the white spots
Good luck with them, I was happy to read you were going to save them thumbs up

All of the advice in this thread is quite excellent. I would like to add a couple notes on helping to get the water quality under control.

You don't need to have a fancy filtration system, if you can find a cheap airpump and a sponge you can make a simple ad-hock sponge filter or even buy one for $10. It is one of the simplest and best filtration devices. Even just putting some sponges in the tank would help to provide surfaces for benificial backeria to grow on.

Also, one route you could go, if you can find a someone with a healthy tank, is to take some of the established media from that tanks filtration systems and use it on your own. This is a type of "instant" cycling that could help reduce the stress on the animals. It is not without risks, as it can introduce disease into your system if the source is sketchy. However, it is a decent method to use if your source has healthy animals.

I hope your guys get better soon.

An update:

So I've been changing 1/3 of the water every one or two days for the past week. He is still bad 50% of the time, and she has just been laying eggs in the past 36 hours - we're coming into spring here.

Tonight he was having a bad time of things, until just now I noticed that he was on his side, on the bottom of the tank

So - he is now in the fridge. I first thought that it could have been the hormones she would have been producing in the last couple of weeks - I don't know.

He still appeared to be moving - very slightly - but was completely off-balance in the tank.

Anyway - obviously gotten worse. I'll keep you posted as to how the fridging transpires.

It is so strange tho that she would produce an abundance of eggs - which I assume an unhealthy and stressed animal wouldn't - but he is having so many difficulties.

Anyway - thanks again for the support everyone. Any advice around what the whole on-his-side-on-the-bottom thing could be (and appearing very weak...) - I'm really, really hoping that Maxy pulls through this at this stage

OK, I feel terrible for not having updated this, especially if other people have experienced the same issue. The solution: air pump / bubbler. Dude basically suffocated.

Maxy was actually dead in my previous response, and following I got two new goldens. During some troubles, they were in the fridge - and then one of the kids started exhibiting the same behaviour, trying to swim "out" of the plastic container. By then I had an air pump at the ready - just as a matter of course, not because I figured that was what was wrong previously. With air flow, dude settled down in seconds.

So - Maxy would have been saved had I placed an air bubbler into their tank. Guy drowned I'll never know why Faxy didn't have any problems - perhaps she's got better lungs that allow her to use more oxygen swallowed from the surface.

Elsewhere I'd read that if the filter "breaks" the water's surface, then it'll be fine. I no longer trust this, after having Maxy die and another come right so quickly after adding proper aeration to water. So, for the last year I've a small air pump with a "curtain" attached at one end of the tank. The water flow as a result is extremely minimal (and they just swim away if they end up with a head over the bubbles, doesn't really bother them).

Anyway - over a year on, I'm much the wiser, and currently have 3 happy axolotyls. I've included a picture just because

Hey sorry to hear about your struggles. I'm glad you've learned and have healthy axolotls now

When I hear people saying that a filter is enough for aquarium aeration its often never thought of becoming a problem because most fish swim up and down the water column. Since axolotls spend a lot of time near the bottom there can become these "dead zones" where there is low oxygen. That is why an aerator placed at the bottom of a tank can really help oxygenate the water.

Boomsloth said:

Hey sorry to hear about your struggles. I'm glad you've learned and have healthy axolotls now

When I hear people saying that a filter is enough for aquarium aeration its often never thought of becoming a problem because most fish swim up and down the water column. Since axolotls spend a lot of time near the bottom there can become these "dead zones" where there is low oxygen. That is why an aerator placed at the bottom of a tank can really help oxygenate the water.

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Filtration and aeration are not essential in an axolotl tank..

xxianxx said:

Filtration and aeration are not essential in an axolotl tank..

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If you are not filtering you most likely will be doing 100% water changes daily which is also providing oxygen to the tank. An adult axolotl is most comfortable in at least 10 gallons of water. It is easy to use filtration and do weekly partial water changes than daily complete changes. Yes an axolotl can stay in just a bucket of water but will begin to gulp the air as it uses up the oxygen. So it really isn't worth it to stress it out...

Boomsloth said:

If you are not filtering you most likely will be doing 100% water changes daily which is also providing oxygen to the tank. An adult axolotl is most comfortable in at least 10 gallons of water. It is easy to use filtration and do weekly partial water changes than daily complete changes. Yes an axolotl can stay in just a bucket of water but will begin to gulp the air as it uses up the oxygen. So it really isn't worth it to stress it out...

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You obviously have very little knowledge of keeping axolotls......

xxianxx said:

You obviously have very little knowledge of keeping axolotls......

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Ah yes, you must be an expert then. Please go ahead and share your wisdom.

Axolotls like most animals with gills require oxygen for respiratory function. Axolotls also possess a very rudimentary lung, which if they go through metamorphism will develop into fully functioning lungs. Yes you can keep axolotls in very low oxygen conditions which would just be standing water, but this is not ideal and will stress them out immensely. They evolved in lakes that had natural processes to prevent water striation.

Boomsloth said:

Ah yes, you must be an expert then. Please go ahead and share your wisdom.

Axolotls like most animals with gills require oxygen for respiratory function. Axolotls also possess a very rudimentary lung, which if they go through metamorphism will develop into fully functioning lungs. Yes you can keep axolotls in very low oxygen conditions which would just be standing water, but this is not ideal and will stress them out immensely. They evolved in lakes that had natural processes to prevent water striation.

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Do some research, educate yourself before you try to educate others.

Not to be rude, Nai Live or Velice, but you claim Boomsloth is not giving the right information, then proceed not to give your own opinion on the matter. It's fairly easy to condemn another for trying by hiding behind the statement, 'you are stupid,' etc, then to not reveal your own underbellies by divulging your own takes on the matter. Furthermore, it was Nai Live, I believe, who encroached others (very politely, and selflessly) to post for this poor fellow, and now you are insulting his intelligence for doing so.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and Boomsloth has not said anything that is likely to cause harm to anyone's axolotls, so please let him have his voice.

This is a forum and open to anyone. Please let it remain so.

I have removed a few replies to this post. If you do not agree with something that has been posted, please respond politely with reasons why. There is no need to be rude and aggressive.

This being the sick sub-forum, I can understand why some stress the importance of correct information. As Petersgirl stated, the posts may be harmless but I can see it causing some confusion.

Boomsloth said:

When I hear people saying that a filter is enough for aquarium aeration its often never thought of becoming a problem because most fish swim up and down the water column.
Since axolotls spend a lot of time near the bottom there can become these "dead zones" where there is low oxygen.

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I have to believe the different dissolved oxygen levels in an aquarium that is only 12" tall would be marginal. I'm also inclined to think these "dead zones" are virtually non existent.
I can assure you that if your filter is providing surface agitation, it will be sufficient.

Boomsloth said:

That is why an aerator placed at the bottom of a tank can really help oxygenate the water.

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An aerator is often recommended but not required. The gas exchange happens at the surface, so having an air stone specifically at the bottom of the tank wouldn't add any benefit unless you're trying to use it to circulate water.

Boomsloth said:

If you are not filtering you most likely will be doing 100% water changes daily which is also providing oxygen to the tank.

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This was Ian's point whether you realize it or not. Filtration and aeration would not be necessary here. This method is used by quite a few members and is also common in labs. Complete water changes every 1-4 days is used to maintain water quality. Another alternative would be a heavily planted aquarium.

Boomsloth said:

An adult axolotl is most comfortable in at least 10 gallons of water.

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Water quality and temperature are considered more important than the volume of the container. In some countries like China, it is common to keep axolotls in a smaller volume of water. Here is an example showing the amazing results with proper care.
There is also Ambystoma who keep some of their adult axoltols in half gallon (2 liter) fish bowls. Ten gallons or more is often recommended but not required.

Boomsloth said:

Yes an axolotl can stay in just a bucket of water but will begin to gulp the air as it uses up the oxygen. So it really isn't worth it to stress it out...

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This is unlikely to happen if you are maintaining the water quality.

Let's say hypothetically the water in the bucket was leaning towards hypoxic. As axolotls also respire cutaneously, by diffusing oxygen through their skin, I would expect the axolotl to float near the surface rather than gulp constantly for air. I believe the gasses in the atmosphere would be trying to find an equilibrium with water in the bucket, providing enough dissolved oxygen at the surface to prevent drowning. I could be incorrect though.



Feel free to point out anything I may have got incorrect.

Elise, you are a perfect example of what I meant!
It's great to have a difference in opinion, that's fine, but you need to state reasons why you may not agree. Elise has looked at each part she does not agree with, and has politely (and eloquently) replied with her reasons.This is an intellectual debate, or a battle of opinions - not a slanging match. I also understand that Elise has said that the need for accuracy is important, especially in a health-related forum - which is a very fair point.

I personally found I preferred to use filtration (because it made my life easier and helped my water quality to improve) and that an air pump prevented my water from clouding, so I am a firm advocate of this method, but this is with 2 axolotls in a 26 UK Gallon tank. Other owners, with other setups, will have different preferences. If the chap with the elderly axolotl felt that an air pump would have helped his pet, then who am I to argue?

One head cannot hold all wisdom, but put all those heads together and you might come up with a more balanced argument.