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Illness/Sickness: Axolotl, Toe bleeding, small white fungus

crzyaxolotllady

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Hi everyone, this is my first post on here. I am hoping someone can help me with my sick axolotl, Toby.



About two weeks ago, I was cleaning his tank and a river rock slipped out of my hand and fell on his tail. It crushed his tail pretty badly, and he lost a chunk. In about one week it healed fairly well, then all of a sudden a small bit of white fungus appeared on a small portion after this initial week. This was surprising, because he was mending well until then, and I was monitoring his tail closely and making sure to keep his water extra clean during this healing phase. I was about to prepare a salt bath for him, when it had suddenly disappeared. During this time he was eating regularly.



About a week after he healed from his tail, I noticed that his little toes had the same tiny small clumps of white fungus on it. It was not that bad at all (and his gills were clean and still are clean), so I figured I would do extra water changes like I did last time and it would go away. He has been like this for about 2 weeks now, and has not eaten for this time. Today, he started bleeding from one of his toes (without any additional injury) and it is a very slow stream and has been going for 6 hours now. The blood puddle he has lost I would say is about the size of a dime. :(



Should I still put him in a salt bath? Should I put him in the fridge? I am worried because he is an old man and he seems relatively okay otherwise. I don't want to agitate him and make the bleeding worse. It has slowed down more since I have been writing this but whenever he swims it starts again.



Here are important specs:
-He is in a 30 gal (113 L), long tank. He is alone, there is no substrate except two smooth river rocks. He has a large, drinking water safe PVC tube to crawl into. (The leaves in the photo are under his tank not in the water).

-He eats earthworms 2-3X a week. I will give him half a cube of freeze dried brine shrimp about once a month because he seems to like them.

-Tank temperature is held at 63-65 degrees F (17-18C).
-Tank has an external canister filter, gets changed regularly and has dispersed low flow.

-Ammonia is 0, Nitrite is 0, Nitrate is 10 (max).

-20% water change every day, 75% water change once a week. Filter gets changed once every other week. Water is de-chlorinated using API Tap Water Conditioner. Maybe I should add something to help his slime coat?


He was a rescue from a laboratory, but has been with me for 6 years. He is likely to be around 8-10 years old. In this lab, they would regularly amputate parts of their bodies off, so his gills and toes have always been odd. His toes are unfortunately somewhat deformed, and because of this he usually sits on them wrong or bumps them and has injured himself before without any issues. In the lab, he was raised in a plastic shoe box on salmon pellets and has always been on the skinny side. I have attempted to increase the number of times I feel him to fatten him up, but he will always refuse to eat or spit the worm out. I have tried beef hearts but he always spat them up too.


I do not have a herp vet near me to take him to.



He is my best bud ever and I am hoping someone can help me. I want to give him the best life since he got out of this lab, so I am also open to advise outside of his bleeding toe issue too. Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me.:love:



I tried to looked around but I am pretty new to this site. I can say it does not look like this: https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55594
 

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crzyaxolotllady

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Hi all,
Unfortunately my Toby passed away this morning. I wasn't able to stop the bleeding. I tried everything I could. Just wanted to give an update for everyone.
 

landonewts

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Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your little one. It really sounds as if you did everything you could, and then some. Toby was lucky to have someone like you caring for him.

I know all too well how much it hurts when the creatures in our care are hurt and sick. I hope you can be comforted knowing that you gave him 6 great years outside the lab, which is a lot. Animals live in the moment, and you made every moment great for Toby. It’s harder for us humans left behind. Feeling for you today, ��
 
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