Illness/Sickness: What can cause problems with gills, swallowing and color dullness?

Background:

My little Phantom lost her tank mate a few days ago. He was constipated after having eaten a marimo (lake ball. Why he ate it is anybody's guess) he passed away even though I fridged and bathed him and tried to get him to eat.

Since then, I changed all the water in the big tank that housed the two of them. Phantom went in the fridge and salt baths for a couple days (Muppet died with some white fungus on him. I didn't want to risk her getting it too.) I also changed all the filling in the filter and washed out the tank (water and sponges only no chemicals).

While that is cycling, I have Phantom in a temporary tank. She's still very little (8cm, maybe?) and so she's in a 6.5 liter tank while we wait for the 40L to be ready.

The interim tank:

Water temperature:19c
NO3: 0mg/l
NO2:1mg/l
GH: 16d
KH:10d
pH: 6.4 (I know this is low, I put a seashell in with her to help bring this up slowly)
Cl2: 0
Filtration: None. Changing water only. No water flow.
Cooling: Fan over water.
Food: Newly opened axolotl formula pellets

Symptoms:
Hooked tail
Curled gills
Slightly grey skin
Trouble swallowing?



At first she wasn't eating after I took her out of the fridge, then on her first meal, she only took a tiny piece of a crumb of a pellet and spent a few good minutes trying to swallow it. She's eaten twice since. One was the same situation again and one she was able to choke down a whole pellet.

What's wrong? The water conditions don't seem bad, but she's acting like she's completely stressed out.

Help!

Blurry, but you can see how her tail hooks a little at the end.

You can see how curled her gills are. They've always been small, and she doesn't have them forward much until this recently. I don't know what other stress-ers I can remove. She's got a hide, a fake plant and two decorations to help raise the pH.

Any advice or insight would be appreciated m(_ _)m お願い

Hi, I am still learning so bare with me until someone more experienced can come along!

But from what I can see, your not doing anything remotely wrong? The curled tail can be a sign of stress. Are they in direct view of light? Also, I don't think it would hurt to add another hide in there just in case.

How powerful is the fan? Any chance it might cause heavy water flow? Also, I noticed you put a question mark at the end of has trouble swallowing, can you elaborate what your little cutie is exactly doing? Wondering if the pellets are a little too large and hard for the axolotl and she may have strained or hurt it's throat. Not sure if that is possible though... Do you have any frozen bloodworm at all? Might be worth a go, or if you can handle it, cutting earthworms up into small pieces to see if it can handle that?

Hope this helps a little, someone with more experience may be able to input more! :happy:

P.S I know it is in a smaller tank already, but perhaps confining the axolotl to somewhere smaller may help with the stress? :happy:

Smallness could contribute to her stress. That's why she doesn't like the fridge, after all. The fan is powerful, but it only affects the surface of the water and doesn't make a dip or anything to resemble "flow."

She's eaten pellets of the same size before, but she used to gobble them in a few swallows, now it takes her many more swallows before she could get even a fraction of the pellet down her throat. I had fed her bloodworms in the other tank, but I'm afraid they may have fouled the water. I don't have access to earthworms.

I wondered if maybe she was having issues breathing and if that was the cause of the gills to show stress, so This morning, I lowered the water level to a little above the height of the fake plant, in case she needs better access to air.

Still at a loss for anything else I can do.