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Illness/Sickness: Axolotl not eating

Hickamore

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Hi!

I have a probably one / one and a half year old, probably female, leucistic axolotl. Her name is Dorcas, I got her a little under two months ago, and up until about two weeks ago she's been pretty much fine.

But she recently started spitting up most of her food immediately after feeding, and now won't eat at all. She hasn't eaten for about a week.

I've tried her with her regular axolotl pellets (the frozen kind with bloodworm and shrimp and a bunch of sea creatures in them) and also with blood worms, and some tuna in springwater, none of which she's shown any interest in.

She's also been very sluggish, not really responding when I've moved her to a smaller tank for feeding, or blown on her when she's floating at the top. She swims around in her tank a bit, but seems to be struggling to get to the surface, and just kind of thrashes at the bottom. She's had some mild gill fungus, which seems to have receded on its own.

The tank's 20 gallons. I have four plants and a java moss ball in the tank. Parameters yesterday were 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 40 nitrate. I did a 25% water change today so I expect the nitrate is now lower. Autumn's started, and that combined with a desk fan blowing on the water's surface has kept the temperature between 18 and 20 degrees. pH has been around 6.4 which is lower than I'd like, and I'm trying to raise it gradually with AquaOne pH Up

I recently removed most of the large river rocks I had in there, as they were a massive pain to clean, and quite a bit of detritus was hiding underneath them. I now just have a couple in some plant pots. She also has two pots as hides. They are all terracotta.

I did have to cycle the aquarium with her in, as the friend who was holding her for me wasn't able to keep her as long as I needed to cycle the aquarium, so she's been through a couple ammonia/nitrate spikes, but the sluggishness and lack of appetite only started recently, now that I'm actually happy with the water parameters.

I'm quite worried- she's visibly skinnier and nowhere near as active as she was before. Any suggestions are appreciated. Apologies for the massive info dump, just hoping some detail might clue someone into what's wrong. I've attached a photo from a couple of weeks ago.
 

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Hayleyy

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How long have you been using pH up for? It isn't a good thing to use with axolotls, and I wouldn't use it on any kind of tank any way as it doesn't stablise pH but temporarily alters it. Each time you did a water change you would need to use it. If the timings work out the pH up may be the reason this is happening.
I've found crushed coral is the best way to safely raise pH. You can get a small bag from most aquatic shops. Just put it in the filter or in a mesh bag in the tank.
Are you able to drop the temperature any more? If you can stabilise it at 18 degrees that's fine but you want to avoid it creeping up any more especially when they are acting odd.
Do you have access to worms? Nightcrawlers are the best option but you could try garden earthworms. My axies have never liked the earthworms here in Sydney because they're red wrigglers which emit a nasty smell/taste, but it's worth a try! I can point you in the direction of online nightcrawler suppliers too if you need. Some bait shops sell them as well.
 

Hickamore

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Hi,

Thanks for your reply, it seems I was too late in the asking. I found her dead in her tank this morning. I don't think it was the pH Up, I hadn't been using it long, and it hadn't nudged the pH over 6.8. I'm not sure what it could have been. She did seem quite frantic and weak yesterday evening, and had a little trouble staying upright. Sorry for such a depressing resolution to this.
 

Hayleyy

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Oh I am so sorry to hear that. Sending you all the best
 
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