My axolotl has black stuff all over here. Please help

Hello,

My axolotl named Bubbles has recently been getting black marks on her. She is albino so this didnt look right at all. First it was her mouth turning black and now I noticed she has little black spots on her sides, also the bottom of her tail and her tummy.

My first though was this might be fungus so for the past 3 days now I have been putting pimafix into the tank to try to see if it would go away but no changes so far.

She wont eat at all and this is getting me extremely worried.

Please help, I really want to help her

Can you take some pictures of her, please? It will help everyone in trying to figure out what it may be.

She also has it on her feet too.

Have you checked her water parameters? The black spots could just be freckles, my baby got some freckles on his face when he reached about 8 inches. However I haven't seen one with freckles on the body. Hope someone more experienced can help!

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Hello

thr bottom lip amd toes going black is normal. My golden girl has done the same and the black toe tips is a sigb of sexual marurity (although not always). The spots on the body Im not sure about but i do not think it is fungus. Fungus is normally white and its cottony and fluffy looking. Are the black spots raised or attached or are they apart of her skin (eg skin colouration)

The pimafix I put in the tank is all natural. I put it in the water ahead of time because I talked to a pet store owner and he said even if she doesnt have fungus it wont hurt her at all in the long run.

I dont think its freckles because the marks arent right in the skin. It almost looks attached. It looks like someone took some black cream and smeared it all over her mouth, belly and bottom of the tail.

She wouldnt eat for couple days now so I put ghost shrimp in her tank just in case she feels like eating on her own but I havent notice her eat at all or poop. I tried feeding her a worm yesterday and she just put it in her mouth and spit it right back out.

I don't know what Pimafix is, but you should know that most of the worse advice is given by pet shop owners and I'm not only talking about axolotls. I'm not saying that this is the case here, but be warned. They tend to present themselves like they know it all, but in most cases their knowledge isn't that great.

Kasia2010 said:

... I talked to a pet store owner ...

Click to expand...

NNOOOOO! They know **** all about axolotls! Unless you know they are clued up about axies I would take anything said by a LFS salesperson with a pinch of salt -their ultimate aim is to get you to spend money.

Please stop adding chemicals to your axie tank - axies don't like chemicals and are much more sensitive to them that fish.

The spots don't really look that abnormal, it's common for albinos and leucistics to develop a few dark spots, but there may be something wrong if she's not eating.

What are you water paramenters, temperature, tank conditions? A pic of the whole tank would help, as well as a 'before' picture.

The tank was cleaned out a week and a half ago. We have a chiller in the tank, and the water for most part has been 65F .

The pH is at 7.6, High range pH is at 8.2, there is 0ppm for amonia and Nitrite is sitting at 0ppm as well.

The only thing is she use to have fresh plants in there and now she doesnt. As well we didnt have the temp go up a lil bit for maybe 2 or 3 days because it was really hot here and the chiller wasnt keeping up.

Here is a picture of the tank right now. I just noticed too as you guys will see on the pictures, she has white little dots under her head.

I have a weird one as well. Not sure if it's the same thing but I guess it's worth showing in this thread.
My leucistic went from leucistic like we know it to 40% wildtype-ness and 60% leucistic.
When it was pretty hot over here, 1 year ago, the black spots started to develop. They never went away. I also noticed tiny, white dots all over her body. Those were gone after a while and had to do with the water quality during the hot summer days.

But the black spots were still there. And there were getting more on her body and last summer more of them developed. But her lips are still leucistic-like.

I still have no idea what it might be... But the thing is, she doesn't seem to bother it. She's not scratching, there are no signs of redness or bloody patches, she's not feeling stressed or showing any other kind of odd behavior. She just being her cute little self. Not sure if they will go away or that I'll have a lotl like this FOREVER. I don't think that it's something genetic. I had a totally different leucistic and in the same tank the blackness started to develop last summer. (A friend bought that axie). And Chipotl (newest leucistic) is starting to develop freckles as well. It's probably something in the water and I can't find out what it is. Even after all the huge water changes I did, it's still in there.

I hope someone, someday will have the right answer to my question. What is this?

I wanted to share this, just in case it's the same thing. But if this is dark pigmentation on my axolotl, it must be weird if that would develop in an albino axie. If this is just some kind of weird mold or whatever, then it MIGHT be possible. I guess?

Here she is (now the top part of her back is heavily marked as well, but it's just a little in the last picture. Oh and her gills are bigger now):

My leucistic also developed darkness underneath her, very faint and it seems to come and go but she's never been irritated. It's really strange it's around her bum and her tummy.. Not sure why or what it is but it hasn't affected her the whole time she's had it which is months and months!

Those are leucistics though. It's generally normal for them to develop dark spots as they age. With albinos like this person's, it's not normal. The last time I saw something like this, it ended up being a parasite. Now, I'm not trying to scare anyone, and I'm not saying that is for sure the case here. But you need to take into consideration what type of axolotl this is and not just throw it aside as being "normal."

Now, on to my question. Does it seem like the black areas move around at all? Like, they'll look one way at a certain time, and then slightly different the next.

EDIT: Looking through the pictures, it seems your axolotl is actually a golden albino, not a normal albino. That being said, the white spots are normal.

I am well aware that leucistic a can have dark spots since mine had a few freckles. In this case It may be a parasite, it might not. As others have posted, darkness can occur in goldens/ albino. I never once mentioned it was "normal", in fact i said it was quite strange nor did I give her any advice? It was just a personal experience I thought I'd share.

Kasia - Did her eating habits change before or after you started using the pimafix? When you saw this darkening occurring how long until her/his appetite went off? And what was their behavior like? Is bubbles an adult?

I wasn't talking only about you, Hayley. There are just a couple people that posted here that made it seem like this was a normal thing, and comparing their own animals with Kasia's, instead of just talking about the issue at hand.

Apologies, Patch. I thought you were targeting me specifically.

Hey appetite was off even before the pimafix. It was slowly slowling down two weeks ago but I didnt think anything of it. Her mouth was the first thing to get the black stuff on it and then it went to her tummy, bottom of tail and the lil patches on her sides.

I find everytime she tries to eat, she takes the food in her found, keeps it for 2 seconds and spits it right out.

And yes she is an adult, I got her last October for my birthday.

The patches dont seem to be moving at all.

From her behavior I noticed that lately she is really trying to get into small spaces, and sometimes it seems like she is having a hard time trying to swim up to the top of the tank.

If this is a parasite, how can I help her?

You could try lowering the water level in your tank perhaps....I'm a beginner at this but my impression from looking at other peoples' tanks here is that many people have the water at a lower level. For my adult male I keep it at around 30cm deep. Also check that there isn't too much light or noise for her. None of which will help with the spots probably, but maybe something about the tank is stressing her out....