URGENT Please Help, Axolotl Dying!!! :(

I have had my GFP Golden Albino Axolotl since she was a little baby, i got her in mid February. She has always eaten and had become quite a fat little girl. Since then she has grown to be about 5 and a half inches long and an energetic happy little Lotl. I keep her tank at a good 64 degrees and full of fun hiding places, she has a bubbler (which she loves and got her name, Bubbles) and i have a filter running, i do frequent water changes and feed her every other day, wax worms, moths, and earth worms.
She has four live plants in her tank and i recently about 3 weeks ago added a new plant. I cleaned it before i placed it in her tank and it was beautiful and she loved it. Then i started to go back to school, and got more busy than usual. Just four days ago i noticed white flaky stuff all over her skin and her one gill on the left side of her head was almost gone and there were little snails all over the tank walls. I freaked out, placed her in a container of fresh clean water and examined her. I have been watching on her and keeping her in the fridge, i started giving her salt baths twice a day for 15 min, a day ago and i change her water every time she gets a salt bath.

But i am so scared, she is sooooo stressed, each day she seems to get weaker and unresponsive, and skinny and just this morning i noticed her bottom lip is brown...I have been doing research out of my wazoo and am soooooo worried about her...shes my baby. I will be devastated if i wake up or come home to her gone... Can anyone give me any advice as to how to get her better or are my efforts just going to amount to nothing in the end? '

Salt baths aren't really advised if there's no fungus. Do you have a picture of it?

Fungus is usually cottony... I wouldn't really describe it as flaky however slime coat damage can look more " flakey " in that case tea baths!

I've had little snails in my tank before too from plants I just kill/ remove then as soon as I see them. Perhaps investing in a magnetic wall scraper will help. I scrub the walls until they float off and then siphon them out

But a pic would really help us out, and water parameters I.e ammonia nitrites nitrates ph and temp

Well atm im at school and wont have access to her for a while yet today and i dont have the tank temp ect because i cleaned the tank out and have it sitting outside until she is better...if she gets better but im sorry it is more cottony, i know its a fungus it has to be i said flakey because it just hangs off of her and floats around in her bowl.

Did you scrub the ornaments and walls and turn off the filter? If that's the case you most likely will have to cycle your tank again to build up the good bacteria destroyed. Do you regularly test your water?

When ever i change her water i will test it. I just got home and she is in a salt bath right now, but idk what to do anymore. I picked her up to gently place her in her salt bath and she just wouldn't move at all, once i placed her in the water she almost flipped upside down, she can barely stay upright, let alone walk/swim...i have a horrible feeling she wont last too much longer '

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=148181222059347&set=pcb.148181325392670&type=1&theater
here are pictures but...i think its too late. She wont make it through the night...

You're right, she's not a happy axolotl - that tail says so.

What plant did you add? And have you tried her in a tea bath?

Bit of a long shot but maybe the last plant was contaminated. See article on invertebrate wipe out from treated plants:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4831



I would suggest keeping your axie in cool clean water in a small tank in a dark place, 90% water change twice daily and maybe some fresh tea in the new water ( as well as your dechlorinator, of course). I would not even remove him from the container if its glass, just lower the water with a syphon and top up again. Basically keeping the stress levels to a minimum but also keeping the water really fresh. I would only feed maybe a small worm every other day if the axie wants to eat.
I would think the down side of fridging is that the light keeps coming on so I would avoid that. Plus I would be looking for a temperature of 10 to 15 degrees or thereabouts. This is my very personal view. Don't know if others would agree. Fridging seems to get recommended a lot.

Hope he pulls through :thumbup:


Oops. Not he. She
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

She just passed away...i wanted try a tea bath but i already new it was too late so i let her go as peacefully as i could in cold, dark water...i honestly think the plant had alot to do with it because once the plant went in is the only change almost ever to her tank and well, im very upset about her passing but i guess i will just have to think of this as a learning experience. I will never use real plants again.

Sorry for your loss . Real plants aren't bad at all and can help improve water quality, maybe properly quarantine them before adding to your real tank.

And tea baths / adding tea to your tank can really help with their skin and preventing fungus as it kind of tightens the skin, never use salt and tea with a fungus as the tea will make it harder for the salt to kill the fungus.

Looks like you tried your hardest. Rip

The link I posted shows that plants CAN be bad. Although very unlikely. The plants in the link had been treated with insecticide by the supplier. As we all know, amphibians are very susceptible to chemical treatments.
I like to have plants in my tanks, there are many benefits, but it still pays to be cautious.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2