Illness/Sickness: New lumpy growth on axolotl? help!

Tenshihime

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Help please! My axolotls have been fine over the summer (I live in Australia) and I only just recently found some little growths on them? They look like little twigs but they're the same color as the axolotls themselves.The water is cold enough, haven;t checked PH but had feeder fish and they seemed okay in there. I haven't changed anything major, I top the water up about a litre every now and then (they have a 90L tank). I don't know how old they are; I've had my first one for about 6 months but he wasn't a baby. One of my babies has it under his eye :(
 

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Kind of looks like anchor worms. Did you quarantine your feeder fish before adding them to the tank?
 
Yikes! Yes, I agree it does look like anchor worms. I'm not sure what the treatment would be...
Anyone know??
 
No, I went overseas and my mum had put feeder fish in for me. Can you please help me with the treatments for that? Do I need to set up my smaller tank with clean water and put them in that while I'm treating them?
 
You need to quarantine everything living before adding it to your main tank to avoid nasties being passed on. Axolotls have really absorbent skin and no scales, so fish medication is too strong for them and usually end up being fatal or have negative effects on your axolotl.

You need to see a vet to administer the correct medication to treat and the correct dosage. I've read on here before dimilin is used but like I said, you cannot use the recommended dosage for an axolotl. You will also need to sterilize your entire tank, throw out the feeders etc. to prevent another outbreak.
 
is there anything else I can do to help them? Or is it just medication that will help them? I've read on here about salt baths and fridging; do they actually help at all? Or will it makes them worse?
I am going to move them to my inbetween tank (a little clean one with nothing in it)
 
Salt usually helps fungus, it might help with the worms, it might not. Salt is irritating so I would be more inclined to go to the vets for the right treatment. I wouldn't fridge him, it's unnecessary at this point.
 
No, salt baths will not do it; you will need medication to treat anchor worm. And it should be done quickly, as these nasty creatures burrow deep into your axie's muscles, organs etc. The deeper they get, the more damage is done when they are removed. Some people try gently pulling them out, but this is not recommended, as it can cause a lot of bleeding (and infection), you may not get the whole worm out, and it involves handling your axolotl in ways only an expert should really attempt. You definitely should go to a vet for this one. And as Hayley says, fridging is not indicated.
Also, as an earlier post noted, you will need to sterilise everything in your tank. Which of course means re-cycling your tank, preferably without the axies in it (it will need a source of ammonia though), as they will have suffered enough stress from the anchor worms and would probably be better off in tubs of cool, dechlorinated water with 100% daily water changes while recovering. (By the way, is your small tank cycled? It doesn't sound like it would be, and you don't want to put anything from the infected tank into the new one, so if you do transfer them into that tank, you'll have to do major daily water changes and monitor ammonia, nitrites and nitrates carefully.)
And yes, these anchor worms would definitely have come from the unquarantined feeder fish. Always quarantine anything (plants, fish) for at least a month before adding it to your axie tank.
 
There is an old post about treating these... try searching caudata or googling Dimilin and anchor worms. But I do agree that you should see a vet about this.
Can you keep us updated about how they fare through this?
Good luck.
 
I understand, by the way, that anchor worms are quite a common problem in Australia, so it is something we need to be particularly careful about downunder.
 
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