Question: Bare axolotl gills

Hey everyone,

So this is an issue I've been dealing with since I got my axolotl in early June. She's not a rescue, she's from a good breeder who I'm in contact with regarding this as well. She has little to no filaments on her gills, and I've tried everything.

Her tank has 0 ammonia and nitrite.
I've tried tubbing her.
I've tried airstones.
I've taken her to the exotic vet who said there was nothing wrong.
I feed her the recommended diet of Earthworms, which she devours happily.
She's not stressed, not giving signs of stress, anyway.

I'm completely stumped, and nobody seems to have any answers. According to my breeder, both her parents had big fluffy gills, so genetics doesn't have anything to do with it. I really don't know what to think, if I should just let it go and accept it as just a weird fluke thing or if this means something bad. She's still a juvenile, perhaps she's a late bloomer? Everyone else seems as stumped as I am.

Hi, for some reason the photos won't load on my phone, but what are the other parameters such as nitrate, pH and general hardness, what is the temp aswell.

I can't open the pics either.
From memory too much oxygen in the water can cause their gills to shrink, do you have a dissolved oxygen test kit? How big is your tank and what is in there that adds oxgyen?

Sorry, the imgur links are here:

https://imgur.com/a/fgek83r
https://imgur.com/a/eKFWe76
https://imgur.com/a/nLcgwWK

Currently, all that's adding oxygen is a sponge filter. As for the other perimeters, my tap water is a bit high in PH but I was told that wouldn't affect it. Tank is a 20 gallon long.

megadoomed said:

Sorry, the imgur links are here:

https://imgur.com/a/fgek83r
https://imgur.com/a/eKFWe76
https://imgur.com/a/nLcgwWK

Currently, all that's adding oxygen is a sponge filter. As for the other perimeters, my tap water is a bit high in PH but I was told that wouldn't affect it. Tank is a 20 gallon long.

Click to expand...

The loss of gill filaments is normally almost always water related, what's the nitrates and general hardness and temp.

NidiaNz said:

The loss of gill filaments is normally almost always water related, what's the nitrates and general hardness and temp.

Click to expand...

There was no loss, she's never had any.

Some of the babies I had went to a zoo, and the herp there did a little experiment. He changed their water differently and observed the effects - some he changed every day and others he changed less. He noticed that the axolotls whose water was changed every day had much bigger, fluffier gills, which sounds odd because you'd think there'd be more dissolved oxygen in freshly changed water.

For some reason, changing the water more often resulted in larger gills. Is this something you could try? You could change a little - maybe 10 or 20% per day - and see if it helps?

I also have some frondless axxies and I have no idea why some have them and some don't. Some are older and have been with me a while, so it could be age, having to deal with water issues while I was learning how to be a good keeper or genetics. It can be hard to tell with them, especially if they were previously frondy.

Petersgirl said:

Some of the babies I had went to a zoo, and the herp there did a little experiment. He changed their water differently and observed the effects - some he changed every day and others he changed less. He noticed that the axolotls whose water was changed every day had much bigger, fluffier gills, which sounds odd because you'd think there'd be more dissolved oxygen in freshly changed water.

For some reason, changing the water more often resulted in larger gills. Is this something you could try? You could change a little - maybe 10 or 20% per day - and see if it helps?

I also have some frondless axxies and I have no idea why some have them and some don't. Some are older and have been with me a while, so it could be age, having to deal with water issues while I was learning how to be a good keeper or genetics. It can be hard to tell with them, especially if they were previously frondy.

Click to expand...

I have found that this works. I clean poop from my axie's tank daily now because I have snails. Used to do it every 3 days. This takes out about 10% of her water. Her gills got so fluffy in a matter of 2 weeks.

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