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Illness/Sickness: Urgent help needed - my poor axolotl

hairdressica

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IMMEDIATELY Urgent help needed - IS MY AXOLOTL DYING

I came home last night to find Bowie floating on the top of the tank. So I gave her a poke and she was able to swim down - so I did my usual water change
Today I came home and she was bobbing around the top of the tank unable to go down and she is COVERED IN RED BUBBLES AND BLISTERS.
Her gills are turned way forward

I freaked out and took her out of the tank and put her immediately into a tub of Bottled spring water( I didnt know what else to do)

I can't help like feel this is my fault? I went to buy her an alternative food to see if she'd be more interested in that as she hates pellets - so I bought some white cloud minnows for her - I assumed she'd just over eaten cause she ate like, 4 or 5 of them
But now I'm really worried. It's like my tank cycle crashed and now itts sort of cloudy

I don't know what to do now - Fridging isn't an option in my house, I have a second tank, but that's still only showing ammonia- whereas my small tank was near finished .

What do I do? Do I put her into my larger uncycled tank? Keep her in the container in my room? I'm so stressed out I have no idea what to do
 

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Bellabelloo

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I'm not sure what is wrong with your poor little axolotl. It could be an infection, possibly passed on by the fish ( where they quarantined for a good month?) or septicaemia. Ideally your axolotl should be treated by a vet, in the meantime, keep her in cool, clean water.
 

hairdressica

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I'm not sure what is wrong with your poor little axolotl. It could be an infection, possibly passed on by the fish ( where they quarantined for a good month?) or septicaemia. Ideally your axolotl should be treated by a vet, in the meantime, keep her in cool, clean water.


I've had her in the container for around 4 hours with a tea towel over half of it so not as much light got in.
She's not as red and inflamed and some fluffy stuff is floating around (I've now taken it out)
Her gills aren't as crazy. I think it was a combination of the fish and maybe my parameters
I might just stick to earthworms and pellets....
seeing as this has helped, should I just keep her in there a while with 100% water changes?

Do you think I need to fridge her?? Tea bath?
 

GeorgeAquatics

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If the tank was in the process of cycling while she was in there, and you weren't using anything to detoxify the ammonia and nitrite, then I'm going to go ahead and say that what you're seeing is most likely ammonia and / or nitrite burns. You're lucky that she's alive as they can both kill very quickly, especially nitrite.

In the meantime, I'd recommend cool clean water, I wouldn't say that the fridge would be necessary as long as you can keep her below 65F, but some people say that being a bit cooler than that can speed up healing, so if you have a garage or something, that might be about right.

You don't have to use spring water when you do emergency water changes, any conditioned tap water should be fine. I'd recommend Amquel or Prime if you have ammonia in the tap water, (these can also be used to detoxify ammonia and nitrite for up to 48 hours in your aquarium) or Reptisafe (plain Sodium thiosulfate) if it's just chlorine.

As for tea, I'm a skeptic myself, and I'd be cautious, if I were you, since a lot of the leading brands have been found to contain pesticides, even the ones marked "organic" (look for the words "organically grown" instead). Then there's the question of whether or not caffiene could be harmful to amphibians. Not that it is, necessarily, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily safe either.

Pesticide traces in some tea exceed allowable limits - Canada - CBC News

There was also a report of someone giving a tea bath to an axolotl after which it's skin started falling off, which I thought was alarming. Not sure what the cause would be for something like that, maybe a reaction to a pesticide? Another thing you might want to be aware of though.

Skin flaking off after a short tea bath? - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum
 

hairdressica

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If the tank was in the process of cycling while she was in there, and you weren't using anything to detoxify the ammonia and nitrite, then I'm going to go ahead and say that what you're seeing is most likely ammonia and / or nitrite burns. You're lucky that she's alive as they can both kill very quickly, especially nitrite.

In the meantime, I'd recommend cool clean water, I wouldn't say that the fridge would be necessary as long as you can keep her below 65F, but some people say that being a bit cooler than that can speed up healing, so if you have a garage or something, that might be about right.

You don't have to use spring water when you do emergency water changes, any conditioned tap water should be fine. I'd recommend Amquel or Prime if you have ammonia in the tap water, (these can also be used to detoxify ammonia and nitrite for up to 48 hours in your aquarium) or Reptisafe (plain Sodium thiosulfate) if it's just chlorine.

As for tea, I'm a skeptic myself, and I'd be cautious, if I were you, since a lot of the leading brands have been found to contain pesticides, even the ones marked "organic" (look for the words "organically grown" instead). Then there's the question of whether or not caffiene could be harmful to amphibians. Not that it is, necessarily, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily safe either.

Pesticide traces in some tea exceed allowable limits - Canada - CBC News

There was also a report of someone giving a tea bath to an axolotl after which it's skin started falling off, which I thought was alarming. Not sure what the cause would be for something like that, maybe a reaction to a pesticide? Another thing you might want to be aware of though.

Skin flaking off after a short tea bath? - Caudata.org Newt and Salamander Forum

Ive done a few posts about my parameters and keeping Bowie in the tank. I've always. We. Incredibly vigilant about my water changes, and I always use a dechlorinator, I've also been using API Ammo Lock with her water changes
I might give both the fridge and the tea bath a miss and just prepare a tub of water so she can be comfortable

I checked on her this morning and more of the redness has gone down, but the water in the tub was bit cloudy so I changed it there's also more fluffy stuff in there. And some of the blisters have finer
So I may keep her out of the tank and try find a slightly larger tub to hold her until it's safe to put her back
 

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Luca1980

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I think the best thing to do in this case, besides taking her to a vet, would be to just be ultra diligent with water changes and keep her in as a clean, cool environment as possible. I would do 80% water changes regularly, to get rid of the 'fluffy stuff' that you keep finding in there. Axies are incredibly resilient - correct environment, combined with the highest quality of food should go a long way to sorting out the issue. If it was me, and you weren't seeing noticeable improvements within a few days I would definitely find a vet for her.
 

Holly12

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What size is the tank? They need at least a 20 gallon.
 

hairdressica

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Bowie as been in her tub for approx 24 hours now.. barely any change to her condition, but I believe the blisters have spread to her gills...
I don't think it's looking too good.

I went to my local reptile place today they told me to just put her into the large tank even though it hasn't cycled because if the ammonia levels rise, they won't be as highly concentrated in a 75L vs the 20 she was housed in before (I had asked people if this was too small, they said it was fine as long as I kept an eye on parameters and moved her once the large tank was ready). He said all I could do was wait and see and pray she's strong enough to make it..

This makes me feel an awful awful axie mum, but I've literally asked all the questions, and gotten as much information as I could.. yet I keep screwing up..
I'm not feeling too positive at this time... I hope Bowie makes it through this..
 

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hairdressica

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I woke up this morning and Bowie is finally able to hold herself to the bottom of the water, which I assumed was good progress
However,
I turned to get some fresh water to go in, she jumped out of the tub and proceeded to flap around while I screamed and tried to catch her.... she fell off my dresser and I managed to catch her.
In a moment of need I put her into my large tank.. where she seemed much more comfortable. It seems she ripped her tail when she was Out of the water. There was some blood there when I went to clean up.. her red wounds seem to have opened now.
I'm hoping to get her to a vet as soon as possible, but I can't help but feel she won't be alive when I get home from work... I feel so incredibly awful, I thought i was making some headway FINALLY and now I just feel like ****
 

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Luca1980

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good job, I know axie vets can be hard to find. Fingers crossed for Bowie!
 

hairdressica

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good job, I know axie vets can be hard to find. Fingers crossed for Bowie!

UPDATE
ALL of Bowies blisters are gone!
She still has the redness though. Her tail has turned white( not the bad kind though!)
I called the vet - she told me it was from her tank size- I left her in there just a little bit too long, the filter couldn't handle the ammonia that was forming.
She says I've been diligent and if I keep doing what I have she will recover.

And she's not floating anymore! And her appetite is back!
She enjoys chilling in her tube, hiding under her driftwood and destroying my mossballs... she's her normal energetic self again
I think she was telling me it was time for a bigger tank..
I'll keep this post up to date on her -let's call it- rash
 

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AxolotlChris

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A small tank is not the issue, is issue was that you allowed the ammonia to originally get so high by cycling your tank with the Axolotl in, and by not changing enough water to keep the ammonia levels at 0.5ppm or lower while the tank cycled. This is why it is advised for new Axolotl owners to cycle their tanks not using their Axolotls as the source of ammonia for the nitrogen cycle.
 

hairdressica

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A small tank is not the issue, is issue was that you allowed the ammonia to originally get so high by cycling your tank with the Axolotl in, and by not changing enough water to keep the ammonia levels at 0.5ppm or lower while the tank cycled. This is why it is advised for new Axolotl owners to cycle their tanks not using their Axolotls as the source of ammonia for the nitrogen cycle.

When I bought her, the person did not tell me about cycling a tank. She told me "buy her and put her in. Check the pH once in a while". I have made a few threads about this and have always been as careful as I could to keep her healthy.
I've always tried my absolute hardest to look after her. With water changes-every day or two(my ammonia is unusually high most of the time)-, to putting plants in her tank, to asking so many questions at the pet shop they know me when I go in there now.
Had I have known about cycling, I wouldn't have gotten her yet -t and I have felt ao incredibly awful the whole time for putting her through it, but I have done my absolute best I can
So please go easy on me
 

AxolotlChris

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Sorry I wasn't judging you, only mentioning what did and didn't happen.

Check this thread: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-beginner-newt-salamander-axolotl-help-topics/f48-axolotls-ambystoma-mexicanum/f57-axolotl-general-discussion/107914-fungus.html#post473706 it mentions some of the key elements of keeping an Axolotl.

Best thing is to always question and ask advice, also use these websites for a vast amount of information related to keeping Axolotls.

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/articles_axolotl.shtml
http://www.axolotl.org/
 

hairdressica

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Checked on Bowie today
She's eating like a pig and she looks so much better
The red spots have gone down to more of a brown colour, and her tail is healing really well.
Happy days
 

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