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Bloated and floating past two weeks

Sarramy

Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Messages
94
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Location
Colorado, US
I need help and the "exotic vet" here in town is no help at all.

I have a female axie, about a year and a half old, that started floating slightly a little over a couple weeks ago. At first it was just her butt and only a little so I figured she's poop in a day or so and it'd be fine, just like normal. Instead the floating got worse and her abdomen started bloating too. She started just floating at the top of the tank, on her side, and couldn't swim back down. I have tried fridging her but so far no luck. She's been in there for almost 2 weeks now. A person on another site suggested trying a tea bath while she was fridged because she was obviously stressed and that would help prevent any bacterial problems starting, but if anything it seemed to stress her out more (moving less, clamped gills) so I stopped that. She started looking a little less bloated and can swim to the bottom, but immediately floats back to the top if she stops moving. We took her to the vet last Thursday (only vet we could find in town that said they were comfortable handling exotic animals and it was the same clinic we take our cats too so we trusted them) but he was less than helpful. I knew the visit wouldn't go well when he said our axie was the first he'd ever seen. He printed out info from axolotl.org and that was basically it. He entire knowledge of exotic animals came from the fact that he used to have a salt water tank and has treated reptiles before. *sigh* So he told us to try lightly squeezing her abdomen daily to help push out anything that might be inside, and that was it. He said he didn't think fridging was a good idea though, but that's the go to recommendation every where I read when floating/bloating is an issue. So now I don't know what to do. She acts hungry and snaps at a worm but then immediately spits it out. I'm worried about her starving. Oh, and now the frill on her gills are gone, which I assume is due to the stress she's under. Does that normally happen when an axie is bloated? The vet had no idea what that meant at all.

What should I do next? I had really hoped the vet could help but hell, I know more about axolotls than he did. Waste of money, and I still have a sick axie. :(
 
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