Illness/Sickness: Broken leg, skin off, fungus

Hi to all,

Three days ago we saw that our female wild color axolotl was hurt badly she has a wound at her hind leg from the knee down and we can see the knee bone
There is still skin left on parts (above the knee and under) and the foot was completely intact. The first day she would still move the foot and toes and we decided to leave her in the tank and put the temp down one degree to 16 degrees celsius. But the second day her foot was curled upward and covered in fungus...
She is now in the fridge and we are not sure what to do next. We did buy some furan-2 on the net but we have to wait for it to arrive...
What can we do till then?

We did make pictures the second day, it looks pretty bad

Hunters leg 1
Hunters leg 2
Hunters leg 3

Thank you very much in advance,

Hey sorry to see the photos of Hunters leg.
Now the best thing to do would be fridging her with a course of salt baths. If you don't know about fridgeing and salt baths here are the link on how to do it safely.
The fridgeing will help with the fungus and the healing of the leg, and the salt baths will get rid of the fungus. In these types of situations they are best done together, both fridgeing then once a day a salt bath then back to the fridge.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...axolotl/72698-salt-bath-picture-tutorial.html

Axolotl Sanctuary

Hi, thank you so so much for your reply!
Yes, we've been reading about the different sorts of baths and also similar topics. Since the fungus showed we did the salt bath twice, once a day with only 1 teaspoon of sea salt p. litre. Is that to little or to much already with this type of wound? Should we maybe do tea baths instead?
She is in the fridge since the fungus showed and all the water is too. She is in a container for reptiles with 5 liters of water.

Thank you in advance!

Hi all,

Today Hunter got her fourth salt bath. While she was bathing we took a picture of how her leg looks now. The fungus is now more stringy and less like cotton and also the foot is less curled up?
She has been doing good in the salt baths, no squirming or restlessness, she accepts it for the full time (15 / 20 minutes).

Yesterday we offered her a worm (after the salt bath) which she snapped at but didn't eat it. We left it in with her for the night but she did not eat it.
In a bit we will try and give some frozen bloodworm. Last time that she ate will be a week ago on coming Tuesday.
Larger Image

Okay so fridgeing will make an axolotl eat less this is normal but be careful when fridgeing. Id say only do a salt bath for 10-15 mins at tops, and you could do this possibly every 12 hours. Have you tried to gently wipe off the fungus with a cotton bud? Very gently ?

Hi, thank you again for the advice!

Yes, we did try to wipe it gently but only today some fungus came off by wiping it, the days before it was still to much "stuck" to the foot.

It does already look a whole lot better than last week the fungus seems to be going away. I hope that it will continue to get better.

But it does look like she will be losing her foot though, because it seems to be getting looser every day?

With kind regards,

Miranda

20 mins is fine with a weak salt solution like you are using.

I usually use 2 1/2 level teaspoons of rock salt per liter of water, and bathe for around 15 mins.

Remember to keep giving salt baths for 3 days after the fungus has gone.

Good luck

Thank you so much, the fungus seems to really go away now and today when I checked her in the afternoon, the foot had come off... it was laying on the bottom of the container, not floating?

We very much hope she will continue to get better. She still won't eat though, I'm not sure if she is just not hungry because of the cold water as Suzi said, or if she is maybe feeling to sick to eat? She does still snap at food but she won't swallow it or just let go again and not snap again.

The medicine (Furan-2) has not arrived yet, it should arrive tomorrow. I've been reading about it and saw that when others use the Furan-2, it is advised to stop the salt baths? We should just continue fridging while giving the Furan-2 treatment? Or should we better continue the salt baths and no Furan-2?

Thank you in advance!

Miranda

You could either use one or the other not both. If the salt baths are working I'd probably stick with that to be honest, but I've never used Furan-2.

Hi, thanks again!

I do understand about not doing both at the same time the reason I ask about the medicine is because I was wondering, the salt bath's are against the fungus and that is now going away.
The medicine would be against a bacterial infection, so I thought I might follow up the salt baths with the medicine?

If salt baths are enough I would rather do that of course than use a medicine.
Is there a way to find out if she has a bacterial infection?

Hi,

today while giving a salt bath, we took new photo's of how Hunters leg looks now.

• Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3

Hey that's great that it is getting better. I have one question.. What is Furan-2? If its something for fish do not use it, anything that's used to treat fish is never recommended because axolotls are not fish. Most treatments for fungus in fish will kill an axolotl. This is why you need to fridge and do slat baths only. I hope you didn't use it. I wish i had seen your updated posts sooner. Please don't ever use any types of treatments or medications because most of them will harm your pet.

How is the feeding going?

Hi

Yes it does look better than before, I thought so too, but I've never seen anything like this before now so I'm not too sure if such a wound can heal well.

The medicine, it's anti-biotics and mostly used for fish (fresh and salt water), but I've read on this forum that it is used on Axolotls too. It were sort of similar topics like this one, I'll put the link here if I find them again.

On the illness page this is said about furan-2: "Broad-spectrum antibiotic sold for aquarium fish. Active ingredients: nitrofurazone, furazolidone, methylene blue".
Then on the Health page it is in the list of "Safe or relatively safe products" with this explanation: "Furan-2 (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) - good all around anti-bacterial medication - highly recommended."

So that's why i thought it would be an ok medicine, but of course only when needed. I'm not sure about the leg, some parts seem red you can see that good in the last picture. That's why I thought I might have to give medicine. But on that same picture the wound looks like it is starting to close already?

About the feeding, we try but she won't swallow/eat food. We wiggle worms in front of her and sometimes leave one in for a while but she does not eat it. Also the bloodworms I gave before she did not eat and I removed them again. She does still snap at food so I do think she is hungry?

Thank you for the help,

Miranda

Edit:
I forgot to add, of course I did not put any medicine in, firstly because we are still doing the salt baths and also because I asked if I should use this medicine, I won't if I'm told it's not good or not necessary. Thanks for helping!

Okay that's good..
As for the leg is should heal as long as the water conditions are good then there is no reason for it not to heal.
Axolotls can regenerate all organs this includes major organs and all limbs. So it should defiantly heal. How long has it been now that you have been fridging?
Id keep an eye on her stomach, is she losing any weight?
How round is her belly compared to her head?
Have you tried cut pieces of earthworm? she might take just a little and that would be better than nothing.

Today (Friday) she has been in the fridge for 8 days if I say it right, coming Tuesday she will not have eaten for two whole weeks. She does not look to be loosing weight yet, but I will definitely keep an eye on it. I will try and make a full picture of her tomorrow, so you can see?

I'm not sure if she would eat small pieces of worm, because she did not want any bloodworms either and we squirted some close by her face with a pipette. She snapped and might have eaten some, but surely not all of it.
I'll try that with the worm tomorrow too, I really hope she will eat while in the fridge. The fact that she is not eating makes me worry.

Furan-2 is an anti-bacterial, it won't help a fungal infection so I wouldn't bother with it.
its possible a secondary bacterial infection happened after, but unlikely. The fridging helps prevent most bacterial infections from taking hold. Most optimum bacterial growth happens at room temp or above.

If she's not dropping a lot of weight I wouldn't worry about the not eating.

Sometimes a live food will be taken more readily by a fridged axie.

Not sure how big she is, but tubifex worms are taken by even some of my 5-6" guys. and they will survive in the fridge water. live blackworms are also an option if you can get them there, and appropriately sized earthworms.

I'm sorry, I should have told, she is an adult axolotl 20cm+ she is fully grown and sexually mature.

The blackworms we cannot get here, but we can get life bloodworms, are those an option? I guess we should rinse them or put them in fresh water for a couple of hours before feeding? White musquito larva we can get too, but those are too squirmy I think?

The worms we try to give are fairly big and thick, I will try and find a smaller one tomorrow and see if she wants that, thanks for the suggestions! Sometimes we have worms very tiny, like one inch, those would be good now.

So we will wait and see what happens with the salt baths, I think that the fungus itself is gone now and that the white you see in the pictures is skin? Now we should continue the salt baths for another three days and then she can go back?

Can anyone tell how we would go about the temperature change, she is now in 10 degrees Celsius and the axolotl tank is 16 degrees. Should we just take the quarantine box out of the fridge and let it get to 16 degrees and then put her back in?

Thank you in advance!

I forgot I commented on this thread...

Furan-2 is used by a lot of axie owners and is perfectly safe, so it can be used if needed.

If the leg was infected it would look very red and swollen, and apart from the fungus in the picture, it doesn't look too bad.

I'd keep her in the fridge until the salt baths have finished, around 3 days after the fungus has gone, as the cold temperatures help to fight it.

When she is ready to go into a tank, just remove her from the fridge and leave her somewhere until the water in her container has warmed to the same temperature as the tank. But don't put her somewhere too warm, as you want the temperature to increase slowly.

Bloodworms sound a good idea, either live or frozen. Many of my axies will eat these even when they turn down worms etc.

Hi, thank you all for your help so far,

This afternoon we did a salt bath and took pictures, but when we checked her this morning and she was floating, a while later she was on the bottom again?

Right now she is floating again.. I did see some bubbles coming out of her mouth when she was in the salt bath.

Could she have swallowed air (I saw her 'gulping' when I lifted her out of the water to put her in the salt bath)?

I've lowered the water level so that she still has 1 cm of water when she is on the bottom. Can we do more to make her not float?

Here are the pictures of Hunters tummy:

• Photo 1 Photo 2

Thank you in advance again,

Miranda

Hi all,

I have not seen her floating any more for the last few hours and she ate a couple of bloodworms twice this evening. :happy:

It was not very much but at least she did eat and I did not see it come back out again. There are still some left on the bottom of her box but she won't eat more.
Normally our axolotls will search the bottom of the tank with their noses to find the bloodworms that were left behind, but now it seems she is not interested if it does not touch her.
I have not seen any axie poop since she has been in the fridge yet, could that also be because of the fridging and slow metabolism?

Thanks!