Axolotl swims wobbly? Back problems?

I've had my axolotls for a couple months now. One albino and one wild type. Jason, the wild type axolotl has never been a very good swimmer. Unlike his tank mate he swims pretty slow and does a funny sort of doggy paddle. He wobbles side to side and swims with his back legs and tail pointed to the bottom of the tank.

Other than this he seems perfectly fine. Nice full gills, big appetite, active. He gets excited when I approach the tank and will swim to my hand. He's a big sweetie. He's also grown to be obviously bigger than his tank mate ( they were roughly the same size when I got them.) I'm not too worried about this because, as I said, he seems fine otherwise. This has been a problem since the day I got him, the store I got them from kept them together in a one gallon tank with goldfish gravel and I wonder if they might have been the cause?

He's still a juvenille (about 4.5 inches long now.) Is this something he might grow out of? I'm wondering if maybe he has a bone deficiency? When he lays on the bottom of the tank his spine seems fairly straight though. I'm wondering if this might be permanent or if there's anythign I can do to fix him up?

As for the tank set-up: They currently share a 10-gallon tank (with a divider after Jason bit off my albino's leg.) They have a quiet, low power sponge filter. I watch the temp and it stays pretty cool. Big rocks and plants in the tank to hide around. They're kept on a diet of frozen bloodworms and I've recently been feeding them small guppies.

Any advice is appreciated!

Any chance of a photo or video?

Sorry about the blurry-ness of some of the pictures. He wanted nothing to do with the camera and it took some convincing to get him to come to the front of the tank. Now that the camera's gone he's happily swimming around the front. Silly little guy.

The first three pics are of some typical swimming poses. The last is Jason sitting on the bottom of his tank.

If it works for him, and he eats and poops fine, I wouldn't worry about it.

I've had a couple axies that much prefer to doggie paddle over 'fish swimming'.

Thanks for relieving my worries about him. :happy: I could never really tell if he was having trouble or just especially un-graceful. But if he did need help, I wanted to help him of course.

I had actually recused a female leopard gecko a few months back with a severe calcium deficiency that had warped her legs,ribs and jaw. I know geckos and axolotls aren't the same, (not even close!) but watching him swim funny made me wonder if there were some similar issues going on with him. (with time and proper feeding she improved a ton by the way. :happy