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Axolotl Not Able to Swallow Food

Bad Aub

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My female axolotl is having trouble eating and seemed to stop altogether a little more than a week ago. She is about 1 1/2 years old. We feed her salmon pellets, usually five a day until she stopped eating. When we drop them down to her she doesn't suck them out of the water like she used to do. She opens her mouth very little and proceeds to expand and contract her neck, it looks like a frog ribbetting. The pellet stays in her mouth for a bit and then falls out. She does not attempt to eat it on her own. She has also been throwing up partially digested food that does end up in her stomach and her neck does the same thin as when she seems to try and swallow. We thought she might have a blockage.

Our attempts to help include:
- Fridging her for 2 1/2 days where she pooped twice. The first was messy and broken up while the second looked like partially digested food/throw up. I changed her water every 12 hours. We chose fridging since it seemed to be a digestive issue.
- Checked for fungus - none to be seen.
- Ammonia, nitrate, and ph levels are normal. ph is about 6.8-7.0
- After fridging and pooping we took her out of the fridge and let her warm up slowly. Then we tried feeding her and the weird neck thing continued.
- She is back in the fridge.

We're worried it might be a parasite. What should we do? I have looked all over, but nothing seems to match our symptoms.
 

Wysper

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I'm so sorry about your baby. :-(

I am not a very experienced owner yet, and have not ran into this problem, but I have done a lot of reading and studying before and since I got my axolotl's.

It almost sounds to me like she has something stuck in her throat.

Can you provide pictures of her tank set up, water parameters and open mouth?

If it is something stuck in her throat, I would say keeping her in the fridge is your best bet right now, and may possibly require a vet visit with an x-ray to see what is lodged there.
 

CPL

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I had the same thing happen with my female in the spring when I moved her to a new tank. I also thought she might have something stuck in her throat but she started eating normally again after 3 weeks. I found jelly spheres in the tank. Know they don't lay without a male but thought that the changes might have stimulating her to produce eggs & if there where a lot they might have put pressure on her digestive system & stopping her from feeding & some might have leaked out. She was healthy so not eating didn't seem to effect her. Only a theory so don't know but hope yours goes back to normal as well.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk
 

Bad Aub

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My female laid eggs a few months ago and that's when we separated her from our male. She's been in her own aquarium ever since. She has black sand, two caves (extra hiding space to help her heal from laying eggs), sponge filter, two plants, and one moss ball. The water temperature is about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. I do weekly partial water changes (about 50% water removed except I cleaned and rinsed everything when I took her out for a fridge treatment).

Thank you for your comments and help!
 

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