Illness/Sickness: Axolotl with a twitch?

[FONT=&quot]Hi All, I'm a new member to Caudata but have used it a lot for heaps of very useful axolotl info. What a great resource. I have the same problem with my axie Quetzal. Heres a video
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YouTube - Quetzal my twitching axolotl
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Just before reading this post I put her in the fridge and that is the container she is in on the video. I just thought I would post this as it does not seem to be a very common problem and maybe more info on the subject will help others.

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[FONT=&quot]She is in a 55L aquarium with one other axolotl. The water temperature has been kept at a constant 19-19.5 degrees C. I had not checked pH, NH3 or chlorine levels in a while but yesterday they were: pH - 6.2 (a bit low?), chlorine - 0.5 ppm, NH3 - 0.01 ppm. I use dechlorinator rather than leaving water out overnight. There are 2 live plants in the aquarium, which were added shortly after getting the axolotls 4 months ago. There are also 2 plastic plants and a length of PVC pipe (which quetzal spends a lot of time in).
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[FONT=&quot]Anyway after reading this thread I checked the tank and sure enough there are dozens of those small planarians on the glass.
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[FONT=&quot]Unfortunately, being new at axolotl husbandry, we had large gravel in the aquarium. We had thought this gravel was too large for axolotls to swallow but after some research it turns out gravel up to 3cm wide can be ingested. Much of our gravel is at about the 2cm wide mark. Yesterday I saw a large white pebble fall out of her mouth but I have no idea when she had eaten it (may have been the second before). The gravel has now been removed from the tank and replaced with sand. But I still cant rule this out as the reason for the convulsions.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]She still eats every day as much as the other axolotl (5-8 "aqua master: axolotl food" pellets daily). I have noticed bits of mushed up food in the aquarium suggested some food may be regurgitated - perhaps I am feeding the too much? They are also fed a baby earthworm once a week. Last week I also fed them a grass grub from the garden each.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]I will clean the planarians off the sides and do a 30% water change before putting her back and hopefully she will be ok. Will post the outcome here.[/FONT] [FONT=&quot][/FONT]

A quick side note (that has nothing to do with pellets), some times dechlorinators have other chemicals in it that can bother axies gills. For example, Terta Aqua: AquaSafe with BioExtract causes irritation to my axies' gills. Now I always use Prime by SeaChem and I haven't had the problem since.

Just a quick update about Quetzal. So after one night in the fridge, a good aquarium clean and one week later there has still been no twitching, spasms or convulsions. But I have noticed the little planarians coming back on the aquarium glass (funnily enough they were only ever on one side of the aquarium). I have started vacuuming the glass while using the magnetic cleaner thing to try to keep their numbers down.

I have also taken to feeding the axolotls once every 2 days and have noticed a dramatic decline in the amount of gunk floating in the tank, perhaps I was overfeeding them beforehand and they were regurgitating when I wasnt looking.

Here's to many more years of a healthy Quetzal!!