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Axolotl Hasn't Pooped Since I got Her?

TopsyTurvey

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Sorry if you've seen me around a lot, with being a new axie owner and accidentally uncycling my tank I've been a little stressed lately which tends to lead to late at night posting- and that's never good for anyone :p

Regardless, my axie hasn't pooped since I got her.
She's a two year old who I got two and a half weeks ago and hadn't been fed for a few days prior to shipping to reduce the dirtiness of the water on the overnight trip.

She arrived very healthy and hungry, and ate for me well and ate a full cube of frozen food- same size as bloodworms cubes but a specific axie food that's pretty popular in nz as far as frozen foods go! Her owner fed her everyday and with how old she is I figured it'd be best to keep it that way, at least for now. The second day she also ate a full cube but the third and fourth days she only ate half.

Then my freezer stopped working and thawed all the food so I had to buy more but they didn't have any of the stuff I'd been using so I had to get the next best thing which was some other very vague branded axie food that also sells very popular turtle food. It's what she's been on ever since (approx a week and a half) but they come in small pieces (about 1/4 the size of a bloodworm cube) and have a bread like consistency. She eats most nights however it takes about 10 minutes to coerce her into taking it and has only eaten a second piece of the stuff twice. I was going to change back to her old food as even though she doesn't seem to have a preference, at least I could get her to eat more with the bigger pieces.

Now my earthworms have finally arrived that I ordered before I brought her so I decided to hold off and try one of those and she always shows interest in food (unless she's already had a piece) but she wouldn't even try these guys! (I think they scared her a bit, would blanching them to kill them first be alright?)

In her old home she used to eat pellets and raw frozen shrimp but I'd really like to stray away from either of those- especially since I've had a fair amount of trouble trying to source the pellets!

She's never pooped once for me, not in her tank or in the bag she was shipped in and it's going to be coming up on the three week mark soon. Thus far I've chalked it up to stress around the first week of having her the tank became uncycled and I'd been having troubles with ammonia (and she got a bit of burning on her tail from it) but I'm wondering at what point do I need to take action for it? Would fridging be appropriate as a treatment and if so for how long?
 

TopsyTurvey

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Small update, today she took an earthworm and I'm so proud of her!
She was very enthusiastic today- possibly more so than I've ever seen and as soon as she saw me coming she starting trying to suck it up when it'd barely even broke the surface! :D

Unless someone disagrees I'm going to start feeding her once every two days or even every other day as I'm hoping it'll encourage her to actually start seeking out/wanting her food. I usually have to coerce her into taking it for a solid 5-10 minutes before she actually takes it, which I don't mind doing mind you, but she just does not seem interested in taking it at all and it just doesn't feel right feeding her this often when she just doesn't want to especially when you take her age into account.
 

Hayleyy

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Hey! How is she going? It can take some time for them to get used to you and the new environment, so hopefully she is just settling in. The cubes you were using are probably similar to what we have in aus, I use them as a treat or backup when I don't have worms. Glad to hear she took a worm! Blanching is a great option, but you'll probably need to wiggle it a bit to get her to eat it. Offer food every day but she might be happy with every 2 days. Mine usually want to eat every day but it isn't odd for them to eat less frequently. If she isn't taking food go a few days without feeding like you said.
 

TopsyTurvey

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Hello! Thank you so much for the reply! <3

She's doing really well; although she still hasn't pooped.
She's finally getting enthusiastic for her feeds so I opted to stick feed her daily with a medium-small sized worm. I'm super happy she's starting to relax and get used to the place, I'm just hoping she doesn't wait to much longer to really 'relax' because all that food must be starting to build up by now, surely?

Do you know at what point I should fridge her (if that's the first method of action?), is it just when she starts to get obviously uncomfortable/constipated or is there a certain time span before you draw the line and put her in there regardless?
 

KumquatSquats

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Hello! Thank you so much for the reply! <3

She's doing really well; although she still hasn't pooped.
She's finally getting enthusiastic for her feeds so I opted to stick feed her daily with a medium-small sized worm. I'm super happy she's starting to relax and get used to the place, I'm just hoping she doesn't wait to much longer to really 'relax' because all that food must be starting to build up by now, surely?

Do you know at what point I should fridge her (if that's the first method of action?), is it just when she starts to get obviously uncomfortable/constipated or is there a certain time span before you draw the line and put her in there regardless?
I'd only fridge them if the constipation started to cause floating or other signs of distress, sometimes i won't notice mine pooping because it gets stepped on and mostly sucked up by the filter.
 

TopsyTurvey

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Alrighty a small update, I finally found a bit of poop!
It wasn't huge and definately wasn't at all solid so I have no idea how long it'd been sitting there (a maximum of two days) but I'm super relieved. However that is the first one I've seen in the past 3 and a half weeks and the past two weeks I've been doing water changes ever 1-2 days due to her tank being uncycled so I'm still rather weary.

I'm also worried that she's either starting to gain weight or is getting bloated, is a small-medium sized earthworm daily enough to cause weight gain? And if it is, what earthworm diet would be best for her to maintain her weight? I've got very few large worms so I'd like to stick to the medium-smalls if possible.

She's at a healthy size still so I'm not too worried about it if that is the case- I'll just need to cut down a tad. I'll try to get some pictures for reference incase this is bloating and it does get worse but unfortunately I don't have any pictures to compare to so I'll be flying blind a bit, although she does definitely seem a bit wider to me. When I got her, the widest point of her stomach was just smaller than her head. i think it's now just as big or maybe a smidge wider than her head but that at a very loose guess, I'll check and take photos to know for sure tomorrow!
 

TopsyTurvey

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Okay quick and somewhat urgent update, she's finally done what I believe is her first proper poop. And of course she's smothered it absolutely everywhere. My real concern is that her back end has started floating, does this mean she isn't finished pooping?

Can i move her while she's like this (to clean up her tank- it's uncycled so I don't want to leave the extra ammonia in there for too long).
And if she's still like this tomorrow, should I fridge her then?
 

TopsyTurvey

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Gah- curse not being able to edit your posts cx

This is pretty much resolved and we've scratched it up to her just settling in, and the fact that she changed diet a total of three times in a three week time span probably didn't help. She's only pooped once so far but she's a lot more relaxed and happier now so I don't have any doubts that she will in future but if I have any more problems I'll be sure to post here!

Thank you so much for all the help everyone! <3
 
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