Illness/Sickness: Urgent help needed with Pear - it looks like eaten gravel

Hello again,

The situation with Pear has gone worse and we need some help, please!

Some days back I posted about our golden Axolotl boy Pear not eating. He spent 4 days in the fridge and in the first 2 days had 3 salt baths as I wasn't sure if his white stress spots and some whitness in his gills were actualy fungus. I stopped the baths as it didn't seem there was any fungus present.

Last night we took him out of his fridge confinement and put him back in the tank as there didn't seem to be any significant change one way or another. Not good, should not have done that! But his behaviour and the way he looked after the move finally gave us a bit of insight as to what is most likely going on with him. He must have eaten gravel

His body is contorted and back arched like in the 'Constipation' photo in the Axolotl-Sanctuary page, he keeps his mouth slightly open and his neck looks swallen. He would not eat (nothing new there). He is twisting his body around and shaking his head, like in pain or trying to get rid of something. And getting bitten by the others in the process if he is moving too close to them while trashing about! Two nights ago his cloaca looked red and swallen, and I though there was blood in his fridge container, but he has als been shedding bits of his gills, so I'm not absolutely sure if it was gill bits or blood stains. Last night the cloaca looked normal again.

Another detail I just remember is, a couple of days before I initially placed him in the fridge, I saw him doing the yawning thing, opening his whole mouth really big. He did it a few times over a space of maybe 10-15 seconds, but before he started, it seemed like he was sucking everything in in a way, even his eyes seemed to vanish inside the sides of his head for a moment. Looked quite bizzarre and scary.

After seeing him this morning, I put him straight back in the fridge, and that's where he can stay until we get him sorted one way or another! He looks so bad, his gills are deteriorating and they are loosing colour, even his body looks paler.

And needless to say, the gravel will be going! It is being removed as I type this!

I have attached some photos here, hopefully they will load and are not too big! I hope they clarify a bit the progress of his condition. Based on these, if anyone could give us some advice as to where next with him, that would be greatly appreciated!

Photo 1 - Pear on his 2nd day with us
Photo 2 - Pear with his tank mates on day 3 with us
Photo 3 - Pear on his 4th day with us
Photo 4 - Pear in the fridge tub, 2nd fridge day
Photo 5 - Pear this morning in the tank before going back in the fridge
Photo 6 - Pear this morning in the tank before going back in the fridge

I have more photos, but I thought these kind of give the progression of the development of his condition in a quick form. I also didn't want to try and upload too many pictures as these are quite large and I'm not sure how the photo process on this forum works, not having uploaded any here before.

Thank you for your help!

P.S. WHile reading some other threads a couple of days ago, I saw a mentioning of a thread by someone about this exact situation. I do not remember who it was by, but I think it was from 2009, the subject started somthing like "Vet please" and went on about impaction, I think. And it is supposed to have a whole progression story of a situation like ours with photos, x-rays, vet stories and comments etc. If anyone knows which thread this is, and can point me to the right direction of finding it ( a link or the subject title or writer, or how to search for it), that would be great! I'v tried to search for it, but no luck.

Thanks!

Hi :happy:

Looking at the photo's, I can not see any sign of stress spots, just normal patterning. Keep an eye on the gill tip. Fungus will look a bit like clumps of cotton wool.

I am not sure what is happening with Pear. My initial thought that being a new addition to your tank he may just need time to settle down. Keep him cool, make sure you do the daily water changes and keep offering food, but bare in mind while in the fridge he will be less likely to eat.
In case you haven't seen this, this is the guide to fridging.

Axolotl Sanctuary

Thanks, Bellabelloo!

I think you are absolutely right, and the couple of paler spots I intially thought were stress spots, are really just part of his normal colour pattern. They haven't changed since we got him almost 3 weeks ago, so I don't think they will.

As for his other troubles, I'm still at a loss as to why it's happening. When we got him, it took him about a day to suss the tank out and settle in, and he was at home, or so it seemed anyway. He was alert and active, and eating really well. His a bit frazzled gills started to grow back and get bushier, he was social and not at all shy, and he was making friends with our first axie Lottie, they were together all the time.

Then about a week into it, he suddenly stopped eating. We feed them mainly earthworms that the kids dig up from the garden, and he was eating them really well, but now he would not touch them, but would just move away from them. Same with other food (we tried Axolotl pellets as well, and raw frozen prawn pieces).

The other two Axolotls in the same tank seem to be uneffected, they are behaving normally and eating.

One theory I had was changes of temperature in the tank. It was getting warmer as we've had the heater in the house on as it's winter here and the whole family has been ill. Because of the heater, the tank temperature was creeping up, so we started to cool it down with the ice bottles. But maybe the cycle of the bottles and no bottles made the temps fluctuate too much?

We've done regular water changes and I tested the water quality, which seemed fine. Although after something I read here in the froum last night about the chemicals in the tap water (chlorine vs. chloramine) has been playing in my head and I think I need to contact our water provider to find out what it is that they use in our tap water.

Our wild type axie Blackie can be quite aggressive at feeding time, if she happens to be close when someone is fed, but we hand feed or forcep feed them one by one, so mostly that is not an issue. However, she might have attached Pear at night time for example, when we are not there to see, who knows. The tip of Pear's tail is a redder than usual and a bit kinked, like it's been bitten, and he does have a scrape in his knee.

And then of course there is the issue of the pea gravel we had in our tank, as per the instructions of the ill-fated book many here have mentioned as the source of their ill-guided substrate choice. The gravel is now gone, as of today, but he could have swallowed it. The way he was looking like this morning was rather concerning, and the arched body and swallen looking throat, and the way he was trashing about like in pain or trying to get rid of something, to me looked like he could have something inside him that should not be there.

Lots of theories and guess work here! Anyway, I put him back into the fridge this morning, and at least that is not stressing him out, as when I just checked on him now, he looks calmer and not as swallen, and the back is not arched like it was this morning.

I did notice something new however. When I opened the lid of his container, he was in the corner, tilted to his right side, and it seemed that he needed toput some effort in to be able to straighten himself, he kept on kind of falling onto his right side like it was heavier, or the left side somehow floatier. And yes, his left side looked rounder than his right, and it seemed like he could not bend to the left but he could to the right.

Other than that, he moved about in his container, the gills looked redder again, no sign of fungus or anything else. He hadn't passed anything, neither was there any skin or gill bits in the water. So back into the fridge he went, and I will check on him again in the morning, change his watre and see if he'd like a worm.

I hope we can sort this out, but if nothing changes in a week or so, I may need to find a vet for him. Actually, as per the web list on the Sanctuary page, there should be two nearby, so hopefully we'll get him sorted, one way or another!

Thank for anyone with any further ideas as to what we should be doing with our darling Pear!