Where did the fungus come from +

So, I found a white cotton puff on my axolotl's gill today, and she's now "enjoying" a salt bath. It looks like her gills are damaged on that stalk as well.

There is no one else in her tank, except the two feeder shrimp she hasn't eaten. No sharp rocks, nothing - just plants.

I'm thinking, maybe the plants were carrying a fungus and it stole a ride. In that case... how do I make sure that doesn't happen in the future ? I know quarantine them, but the plants aren't / weren't showing anything that looked abnormal to me.

Edit : her tank is at about 67 F or ~19.4 C, so I do not think it is so warm as to be stressful

Another Edit : ... now after having been in the salt bath for 15 minutes, the tips of many of her gills are bright, bright red. I'm so afraid that the salt bath did more harm than good and damaged her gills significantly. She's also shaking her head a lot, like the gills are irritating her. Only more time will tell, I'm terrified that the red parts are irreparably damaged/dead or something.


Batteries on my good camera are dead. The bright red parts are extremely blood red like I've never seen them before.


I used aquarium salt and followed the tutorial.


Now I'm afraid of giving her a salt bath again... and afraid the fungus will come back. I was going to give her another salt bath before I went to work (about 12 hours), but I don't want to harm her any more.

I hope you haven't done another 15 min salt bath.... I have read everywhere it is only 10 mins you leave them in for !? Hope all is ok with your axie.. Best of luck:happy:

The tutorial said 10-15, and I had only used 2 teaspoons (of the recommended 2-3) per litre, so I figured it would be okay. And it was big aquarium salt, so it wasn't even much of a teaspoon-full.

She had calmed down after I got her in the bath, so I didn't think it was irritating her that much. I watched her the whole time, and I didn't notice her gills changing colour until I took her out.

I might try a 10 minute with 1 tsp salt if I see the fungus come back.

She's been healing so well from the injuries she had when I got her, I feel terrible that somehow this fungus got in her tank and now this.

She was probably just annoyed at being moved around. You used water all the same temperature, right?

Yeah, I got them as close as I could.

I was coming back here to update, the red parts have now fallen off, so they must have been damaged.

I feel so bad for her. She seems to be doing okay, and I really hope the fungus doesn't come back. Poor thing, she was starting to look really good and healthy and now this happens to her.

I erred on the side of less salt, there was no chlorine in the water, it was her own personal tupperware that is never used for anything else... I don't know what went wrong.