Illness/Sickness: Really need some help, Close to death :(

Guys,

I am desperate we've had Louis now about 7-8 months & as far as we know he is a mix between a wild & domestic type as he is a very light grey. About 2 months ago he went off his food & hasn't regained a normal appetite since only eating small amounts rarely.

We put this down to temperature & water flow issues & went on to correct them, by the way we use bottled water to wash everything in the tank and the tank water itself is bottled. His usual appetite still did not return so we switched his food from frozen blood worm to live as the he only seemed to eat when the worms were dropped near to his head, he would pick them out of the water as they fell but then have no interest in bottom feeding. The live worms seemed to work well but I took the advice of the guy in the pet shop who said the worms would be ok to leave in the tank as he would dig for them. I then found this was not the case as they tried to form a culture in the tank.

We fully changed the substrate & tried to cycle as much water out as possible without trying to spoil the environment 40% with a cycle of about 20% for the next few days. Shortly after Louis developed white patches which looked like his slime layer was pealing, we put this down to stress due to the new substrate (Large stones) so on the next clean out (by the way can you be to clean, as well as changing 20% of the water on a weekly basis, we would remove him from the tank, get all his waste out & clean the plants & caves in bottled water, could this have been to clean & stressful for him?) we changed the substrate once more (stupid I know but you seem to read so many contradictory things on these little beauties).

The white patches cleared up slightly but I noticed white spots all over him & also red lumps on him tail. After a salt bath there was definite improvement we also tried a new food, haddock pellets (as we had read about local fish pellets were a decent stable source of food & were easier to drop on target due to his lack of interest in bottom feeding, I made sure that I stuck to the guide lines given on different sites about the ratio of proteins to oil & made sure they were natural & did not contain betain) He seemed hesitant but eat a few here & there & would often catch them, manage to each half then spit them out. he was only fed these about three times. As I say the first salt bath seemed to help just leaving him with the white spots, faded but still present. His balance & co-ordination has also seemed off recently & we've found him in a hand stand position more often than not. Last night I gave him another salt bath (I use less salt & more water than subjected on Axolotl.org & for less time) but about 5 minutes in he started having a massive panic trying to just from the bowl, this was possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed & I got him from the mix to a clean bowl before putting him back into the tank. He continued to have panic bursts on the surface of the water as if he was trick to escape, only to then calm down having taken in to much air. He'd float around for ten minutes or so then freak out again like nothing I’ve ever seen. He then stopped using one side of his body completely & this morning was dragging himself around the tank almost on his side.

By 12:00 he was on his back at the bottom, lifeless. We thought he was gone for sure, I picked him up from the bottom to find when he was out of the water his front legs & head were still just about able to move. Not being his time just yet & not knowing what do I put him back in the tank to allow him to drift of in piece. I placed him on the bottom right side up & he amidiatly rolled over once again. He's still there his gills seem to be getting smaller & I don’t know if there’s anything to do but wait till the end. Could this have been a heart attack or stroke if that’s even possible. I feel like this has been building for some time but just did not know what to do. No strong current, only bottled water, no added chem’s or fake plants, water levels checked out fine, big tank, lots of places to hide, temp was ok. Has anyone else ever know anything like this. Could he suddenly recover or is that it? I've been advised to drop the water level & turn the filter off to see if he comes back. He's fighting at the moment but I can’t see it lasting much longer. Please help me, I’m desperate, we don’t want to lose our little swimmer

Thanks for any advice in advance


Adam

Sorry to say that it does not sound good.

You say you changed substrate 2-3 times, what kind of substrate was he on the previous times and currently?
What size is his tank?
what kind of filtration?
What is the water quality like when tested?

Have you noticed him to poop as he had in the past, is it normal?

The butt floating would lead you to believe he is plugged up and gas is causing him to float, that is why I asked the poop question.

The substrate question was kind of on the same page as I wonder if he ate stones/pebbles whatever. If there has been no chance of him eating something he can not pass and he doesnt have fungus or other abnormal stuff on him I might sugest fridging. This may help if there is a blockage, keeps temp down, keeps him from floating as there is not enough water for him to float away in.

I hope some of this helps and it isnt too late but from the sounds of him on his back and gills shrinking it may have gone too far even for a vetrinarian to help.

It sounds like anything will be good at this time, unfortunately i was in your position some time ago, however you must check, does your bottled water contain additives as i know most do these days, you may still be needing to dechlorinate the bottled water too. Put him in a big plastic container, a bucket or tupperware container and wrap him in a towel, put him in the fridge and see whether he can pass anything, as for food, you mentioned the worms, while hes in the container, feed him using a pair of old tweezers you may have to sway them around infront of him to get his attention. Good luck, I know how hard it is to see your little man so sick :'( keep us updated

I dont have any advice to give, I just wanted to say how sorry I was you are going through this and that I am hopeing for the best for you and your swimmer. Please let us know what happens.

Unfortunaly by the time I'd managed to seach through the forums & find this may have been due to boyancy/constipation issues & the full directions for fridging it was too late we lost Louis later that day. I rushed home to prepare the fridge & everything else but the colour had started to drain from him tail & he had nothing left to give. Poor little guy.

As far as passing waste does he was always quite private about it (sounds odd I know) but he would very rarely go to the toilet out in the tank, it would usually be in one of the caves. Saying this there did not seem to be nearly as much waste as usual of late & I'd also noticed what I think may have been vomit a couple of times. Substrate was sand for a long time until we had the worm culture form, we changed to gravel for one night as it was all we could get at the time before changing to LARGE pebbles, bigger than his head as we wanted to try to make sure that if there were any eggs they did not have anywhere to nest & would hopefully all die off. Although I do worry there may have been a few in there which were smaller. They were only there a week before we went back to mostly sand with a small area of pebbles which had been sorted into only those which would have been to large & heavy for him to move let alone swallow. He actually spent most of his time in this area from then on. We learnt a lot with him & now through trial & error & unfortunally loss know not to make those same mistakes. It's just horrible walking into the bedroom to find an empty tank

I will look into the bottled water situation as we have always used it without issues but I have heard stories of companies changing the formulas without notice before. We tried twesers & the first day he ate well from them, then once again just lost interest. Everytime we found an answer we had another problem.

All water tests came back fine I really think this may have been constipation, infact i'm pretty much certian.

Thank you for the support guys, I will not be a stranger to this forum. We need a little time but may have to try again. I just miss him a little to much at the moment to not consider having another.

R.I.P Louis