Any tips on fluffier gills?

It has been a while since I posted my own thread here, mostly because I havent had any problems/issues that have arose in a while.

I am just wondering though if anybody has any tips on getting nice fluffy gills? Two of my axolotls(Echo and Texas) currently reside in a 25gallon tank together. They are almost 7months old and are 8" long. The tank is cycled, and I clean their poop out everyday/siphon every 3days and do a 20% water change once a week or more if need be.
They have a HOB filter (aquatech 20/40) with none of the filter media for it, I have discontinued the use of carbon because it was expensive and if I didnt replace it in time it made a huge mess. so I have the sponge that comes with the filter and crushed coral in a bag to help keep the PH over 7 (without it it was under 6) and then cut up sponge just to use up the empty space. I also have a sponge filter for a 30gallon tank in there as well. there is very little water flow I use a tuperware container lid to reduce water flow.

Their gills use to be big and fluffy, and I guess they still are okay, but they look like the gills never grew with them, they just grew into their gills, if that makes sense? like the gills have not shrunk but they havent grown either.

Any tips would be great. I also have 3juveniles in a rubermaid container and one has really big fluffy gills and the other two are just normal(guessing maybe genetics?)

I also attached a few pictures of my lotls. the picture of my juveniles is when I first got the rubermaid container, I have added more hides and a homemade filter to it since it will be their summer home(it is cooler there then anywhere else in my house, so I figured ill stay away from more stress if I can avoid it)

I've had the same experience with my two younger ones--they seemed to grow into their gills! Now that they're bigger, their gills don't look so huge. :/

Its so odd :s i wish i knew why they didnt grow. I was just wondering if it was something i was doing wrong.

Is it possible to select for longer, fluffier gills when breeding? I've had axolotls for many years, but mine all had kind of normal looking gills. I just got a few new colors from Mike Shrom and there is one with AMAZING gills. It's very pretty. Just wondering if anyone has tried selecting for this trait? I saw another thread in this forum that seemed to imply that it was partially genetic and partially related to oxygen levels.

Anna

This may sound crazy but when I feed better foods my Stanley's gills look fluffier, more vibrant.. Like a big earthworm or a bit of prawn. Also since I put a bubbler in his tank his gills got fluffier.

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Are you talking about the length of the things the fluffy stuff grows from? or the actual fluffy stuff?

Fluffy-ness can be helped with sponge filters. length of the stalk-things is genetics (or biting)

Well... Shrinking or poor gills usually indicate the animal isn't too healthy/happy. Make sure there is little to no current, water no warmer than 22° C, water chemistry is right, and they can't swallow anything unhealthy. My axolotls have always had long, fluffy gills except the few ones that died not much later.

Quentari said:

Fluffy-ness can be helped with sponge filters. length of the stalk-things is genetics (or biting)

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I second this, once I changed to sponge filters all my axie's gills seemed to increase in length and fluffiness!

Although in my smaller tank my leucistic already had fairly long gills, and his/her siblings I've seen also had long gills. I am inclined to say it is probably partially genetics too.

There's a lot of debate on whether gill length and fluffiness is a indication of low oxygen levels/ good living conditions (i've looked up this topic quite a bit before...), but my axies seem happy, and they're just so cute with fluffy gills xD