mikekaduce
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Our axolotl, Leo used to have really big and awesome looking gills. Here's a picture of him from a few months ago: http://imgur.com/vk9pcqH.jpg . Up until last night, his gills looked like this. Today we wake up and they look like this: http://imgur.com/nt2b03X.jpg.
He doesn't seem to want to eat either - he will make a half-hearted attempt to take his food (nightcrawlers and krill) but never really tries to eat.
He shares a tank with two leucistic axolotls, both younger than him but both of them are about to reach sexual maturity. They're about 5 inches long and Leo is about 10.5 inches long.
They've cohabitated in a 29 gallon tank for a few months now with no major incidents of biting or chewing, just the occasional nip when they were getting used to each other or when we tried to feed them too closely. They would hide out together and seemed to be getting along without a problem.
pH and ammonia levels in the water are fine, we do a 1/2 tank water change weekly, using the correct water and floating them to make up for any temperature changes. Temperatures in the tank would get rather warm during the summer months but we would keep frozen water bottles in their tank and change them out regularly and we were able to keep temperatures between 70-75 most of the time. Lately it's been cooler and their tank is at a pretty steady 70-72 degrees.
The other axolotls look fine and are eating/swimming/moving about normally.
Does anyone have any ideas of what we can look for to improve Leo's situation? Does this appear to be an environmental thing or a case of our axolotls not getting along all of a sudden? If anyone has any ideas to help I would appreciate it. We have had Leo for less than a year so although he is fully mature he is not old by any means.
He doesn't seem to want to eat either - he will make a half-hearted attempt to take his food (nightcrawlers and krill) but never really tries to eat.
He shares a tank with two leucistic axolotls, both younger than him but both of them are about to reach sexual maturity. They're about 5 inches long and Leo is about 10.5 inches long.
They've cohabitated in a 29 gallon tank for a few months now with no major incidents of biting or chewing, just the occasional nip when they were getting used to each other or when we tried to feed them too closely. They would hide out together and seemed to be getting along without a problem.
pH and ammonia levels in the water are fine, we do a 1/2 tank water change weekly, using the correct water and floating them to make up for any temperature changes. Temperatures in the tank would get rather warm during the summer months but we would keep frozen water bottles in their tank and change them out regularly and we were able to keep temperatures between 70-75 most of the time. Lately it's been cooler and their tank is at a pretty steady 70-72 degrees.
The other axolotls look fine and are eating/swimming/moving about normally.
Does anyone have any ideas of what we can look for to improve Leo's situation? Does this appear to be an environmental thing or a case of our axolotls not getting along all of a sudden? If anyone has any ideas to help I would appreciate it. We have had Leo for less than a year so although he is fully mature he is not old by any means.
