Are Neurological Disorders Rare In Axolotls ?

Re-posting this here because no-one replied to me and it's been five days.

I'm asking because my first axolotl, Casper, has always been kind of spazzy. He is older than his tank mates but they are quickly growing bigger than him since he refuses to eat more than one pellet per hour. So he's always been quite scrawny.

He also has these moments where he will start floating, and just drifting off, so I go to check if he's alive, then he flips out. He will contort his body, flip up upside down and around. Throw up huge amounts of sand. Scratch at his gills (and no it's not fungus, my other axies are fine and water is fine). Then when he calms down, his head will twitch, similar to when axies swallow a big bite of food.

A few days I decided to move him to a tub so that he can gain some weight and not stress in the big tank. He floats often. Oh and one last thing, he will also flip out in tubs. I know this because I put a lid with holes over his tub, and when I return, the lid is dripping wet.

Hi

Sorry you didn't have any answers when you first posted, but sometimes people won't if they don't know whats wrong...like me

My first thought is this, if your axolotl is throwing up a lot sand, then I would personally remove it. This is so you can eliminate this as being part of the problem. I suspect he is quietly going around the tank looking for stray pellets and is accidentally consuming the sand in the process.

The twitching head and gill flicking makes me wonder if there is something that is irritating him. This could be in his mouth or on his gills. I would give him a few days to clear his stomach of sand, and if he is still doing it have a look in his mouth. This is best done with the help of a friend. While he is held, use a plastic spoon and very gently open his mouth an see if you can see anything.

Neurological problems can occur, I've seen a few posts on here over the years but can't say at present what may have caused them.

Try some earthworms/nightcrawlers with him, maybe he isn't too keen on pellets
Maybe his personality is more crazy than the others but make sure you're checking water parameters to rule that out