Possible skin disease?

Hello all, I'm concerned for my golden axolotl! I believe it's a girl, but I'm not positive and I also have not picked out a name for "her".

Ill get to the point though. I went to go feed her and onyx (my leucistic) and a huge chuck of her tail was gone! I know onyx didn't do it because I found the chunk laying on the bottom of the tank. He has never shown aggression towards her and I don't believe he had anything to do with it.

I'm hoping it was all just an accident with one of the ornaments. I had a rock formation in there that could have possibly done that ): I took that out hoping that's what happened.

But the thing I'm concerned about is her left back foot has a scrape looking thing on it and there's a little blood there. It kind of looks like the skin is coming off on her toes somewhat and around that area. I don't know about skin diseases so I don't know if that was a part of the possible accident or if there is something going wrong /: onyx is perfectly fine and showing no signs of illness. I assume if it was a skin disease that he would have it too?

I hope it was all just an accident! Thank you for any replies

Here's a picture of her tail. I couldn't get a picture of her foot since she's in a bad area. I will post one tomorrow.



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Ouch!! Poor girl! Give her a tea bath. Tea baths help soothe, tighten and heal irritated, broken skin and slime coats. I prepare 10L bucket/ tub of cool, dechlorinated water. I get my regular mug and place a PLAIN, BLACK tea (no herbs, no flavored, no green, no infused teas) in a dash of hot water and really squeeze the good stuff out of it. I then place it (once it's cool down) in the bucket prepared earlier. Let your little girl soak and play in the tea bath

However do keep an eye out for fungus which looks like cottony fluff. In this case stop tea baths and do a salt bath, you'll find the tutorial in this sick axolotl section. Follow instructions carefully as the salt is quite irritating especially if there's an open wound. Once the fungus clears up completely, you may start the tea baths again.

P.s as the tea tightens their skin it can make it harder for the fungus to penetrate, that being said, if you do it whilst there's a fungus, it may be harder to get rid of.

That definately looks like she's caught it and torn a chunk of her tailfin out - ouch! She could have caught between ornaments or rocks, caught it under something or her tank mate could have bitten her - they don't always eat a chunk they've bitten off! If she has a scraped foot too I'd plump for ornament or rock injury.

Hayley is quite right - tea baths would be good.

And don't worry - at any given time one of my axies will be missing a portion of tail - either bitten in a case of mistaken identity or where they don't realise how big they have got and try to squeeze through gaps not quite big enough for them. The good news is that axies recover very well, and they don't scar.

Thank you both so much for the feedback. Her foot looks much worse today! ): I believe there is a fungus on her now, it didn't look like there was last night. Her scrape is a lot bigger now and her leg is swollen. It doesn't look like she can move it /: So I suppose this is the time to do salt baths and then tea after its gone.

I do want to know if I should keep her separated from onyx and how long? Also how often should I do these salt baths? I've never had a problem with them before, so I'm a bit lost right now ):

Here is a picture of her leg now. I have her in a tub of dechlorinated water with a temperature of 66 degrees right now. That's about as cold a I can get the tank that she is usually in.





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Can we get a photo of the "fungus", because sometimes peeling skin can look like a fungus.

Is it thin and wispy? Or fluffy and cottony like when bread gets mouldy?

That's the best picture I could get /: I can try bringing her in the bathroom where there is better light. I'll do that when I change her water. I could only get her to eat two worms today and then she threw those up, plus two more I suppose are from last night. Usually she'll eat four which she did last night. I hope she just was still full and ate too much today.

It looks thin and almost clear which I thought was skin last night since it was scraped, but it was much more noticeable today and I saw it on her tail today too which I didn't notice last night. That's what is making me think it might be fungus. I suppose it would be extremely easy to see if it is a fungus? I can only see it at certain angles and in good light. So it definitely isn't too noticeable.

Do you suggest fridging her? Her temperature is 65 in the container she is in which provides her more room than if she did have to go in the fridge.


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Fridging is only really done for impaction, gas, constipation or extremely ill axolotls. I'm Australian I work in Celsius haha, 65 Fahrenheit is what like 18-19 Celsius? If so that's fine and would avoid fridging. Look around on the sick axolotl forum about fungus and compare photos because I can't see a thing from the other photo sorry.

Okay, i wasnt sure if her throwing up would mean i needed to fridge her or not. also i didnt know if it would prevent fungal growth and speed up her healing?

Yes it is 17 degree celcius I just changed her water and put her back in her tub. I took a few more pictures but I think they're about the same, sadly. /: I'm using my iPod and it isn't very great with detail. My phone is even worse.

I did some searching on google and didn't have much luck, but I'll definitely look on here. So far I haven't seen anything that looks like it. Hopefully it isn't fungus!

Here are the pictures



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