I think my axie is a "spastic mutant".

I know from the title it sounds like I am taking the piss but I genuinely think one of my axies has the spastic gene.

After cleaning or if the water is disturbed she will thrash around, coil up and bash against everything in the tank, its really distressing to watch. Yesterday she got her arm stuck around the filter wire and just froze (this was after a complete clean of the tank). The other acted completely normal, if not a bit confused as to why the other was bashing into her every now and again.

She also spends a lot of her time completely still, staring at the wall while the other will interact and have a look at what's going on around the tank.

If I have to do a full tank clean I am always very careful not to disturb her too much but she always seems to do this! Has anyone else got this problem or have any ideas on how to deal with it? Its getting worse as she gets bigger and its horrible to watch.

Re: I think my axie is spastic...

Do you really expect help after starting with such an offensive comment?

Re: I think my axie is spastic...

apologies if this offended you in any way but if you read the journal articles on this subject I think you'll find it is the term used to describe axolotls with this particular behaviour pattern.

I'm asking for help because I'm genuinely worried and want to decrease this behaviour in my axie by any means possible.

I thought I would post on here because I have used this forum a lot in the past and it has been really helpful, this is my first time posting on here and after your completely unhelpful reply I feel like taking myself off the site.

If you had taken the time to read the rest of my post, which I'm assuming you didnt, I think you'll find I am actually really worried about her so i would appreciate it if you would stop posting.

I got my hopes up when I saw I had a reply thinking maybe someone had some insight into this and I must say your comment is really disappointing.

Even though this may sound terribly wrong for UK readers, there is such a thing as a "spastic mutation" which is a described mutant that causes an abnormal swimming behaviour.

I have no obvious solutions, I think you may have got the diagnosis right and there is no cure.

I understand the term 'spastic' very well - I am in the health services. You changed the title when this post was moved.

If it does have a mutation then yes, I agree that ther's nothing you can do I'm afraid.

Yes, i changed it from the still visible "I think my axie is spastic..." to "I think my axie is a "spastic mutant"." in an attempt to maybe avoid confussion. Not a significant change, though...so the problem is not the title change, clearly.

www.genecards.org/cgi-bin/carddisp.pl?gene=SPAST

I too am in health care and understand the negative implications of the word, after a bit of google-ing I found several ariticles discussing the aforementioned gene in a variety of animals, whilst in humans it is seriously un-PC, in the animal field it is more common parlance.

I have attached a link to one of the aritcles I found.