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Floating Lethargic Axolotl

milkandchips

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Hi I am a new member here at caudata, i currently own 2 axolotls, named milk (leucistic) and chips (melanoid). They are kept in a 30 gallon tank with weekly water changes and a 980L/H hang-on filter.

Milk is kind of sick? He/She (I've never been great and differentiating animal genders unless theyre very obvious) has been lethargically floating at the top and refusing faborite meals such as bloodworms. They are still juveniles (if I'm not mistaken) and are somehow unable to 'vacuum' the earthworms (cut up) i feed them. I sometimes rotate to hikari sinking carnivore pellets. Milk very much prefers blood worms and used to have a big apetite. Recently it stopped moving altogether and doesnt even try to get to the bottom of the tank. The water conditions are fine except the pH level being a little bit low. The temperature is also cold enough for them. Weird thing is, their discharge colour is white ? Like aquarium stones and they havent been pooping right for some time now. I dont use any kind of substrate and have no small decorations that can fit in their mouths. Milk swims around the top area and sometimes try to swim down but fails halfway and floats again.

Should i fridge Milk? Or what am I supposed to do?
 

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Otterwoman

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I have read of floating axolotls over and over. I'd do a search on the forum and see what comes up. GOod luck.
 

Zyfxa

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*I am in no way a license exotic vet but I hope I can help* So I know you stated your Axolotls diets, quality of tank, etc but I really want to make sure everything is right by kind of going over everything again. So a floating Axolotl could mean a few things: temperature, quality of water/nitrates and nitrites, diet, or neurological issues. I would recommend putting your sick axolotl in a different tank to better observe with what you're dealing with. Assuming you double-checked your tank and made sure the quality and temperature is right lets go on to food, you mention your Axolotl has white fecal matter which is caused by a not so great diet, I would recommend cut up earthworms (nightcrawlers) for their size, slowly transferring them to earthworms should help with fecal matter and may help your axolotl feel better, another thing is neurological issues, this could happen if your Axolotl has a bacterial infection (the bacterial infection "eating" at some part(s) of the brain but not always the case), genetics/ poor ethics from the breeder, or when feeding, the Axolotls like to thrash their food and could have bonked their head on a hard surface and caused damage to their head. If you've gone through the process and the outcome is still the same then I would recommend seeing an exotic vet (preferably 2 different vets to have a second opinion). I hope this helped and best of luck!
 
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