More problems with my babies :(

I just don't know whats going wrong, it just seems to be one thing after another at the moment with my axies, and as far as i can tell I'm doing everything right, the water's kept below 19 degrees at all times, i always dechlorinate the water with a conditioner that, as far as i can tell, is completely safe for axies, and the water perametres (stated in my previous post) are all well within the norm. They are kept in a bare bottom tank with plenty of hides, fed blood worms at least once a day, twice if they are looking thin or seem to want more (which until 2 days ago was everyday.)

Last week Dash hurt his leg, Lottie played dead, I got them all better and completely happy again. Then yesterday they started being all sluggish again, i thought it might be the heat as we are in the middle of a so called "heat-wave" so i pointed a fan at the water surface and put them in the coldest room in the house. Today I've noticed Lottie has what looks to be fungus and I'm thinking Dash is probably developing it too as he's acting sluggish as well. So I gave my first salt bath this morning, following the instructions on the axolotl website, it was fairly weak and shorter than for an adult as they are still babies and i don't want it to hurt them. They have also been moved to the fridge for at least the duration of the heat wave, if not a little longer.

I am in desperate need of some help and advice, if anything happened to them i would be devastated. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Is it normal to have so many problems with babies? Do you think I'm doing the right thing about the fungus?
And most importantly, what do you think caused the fungus?

Thank you

Random guess as i'm rather new to axies myself but maybe it's heat stress ? I know the slime coat can be damaged when they are overheated and grow grey smudgey slimy looking splotches on them (or at least I've read that's what happens ).Is that what the fungus looks like ?

I'd just keep doing what you are .It seems like you have it all planned and doing everything right ,axies hate the heat just like me lol

Hopefully someone more experienced than me can help you a bit better though .

How big is your tank and what type of filtration do you have?

And how often are you doing water changes? All of those things can affect them, but right now heat is the big one everywhere that seems to be causing the biggest problem.

Mine are still in the fridge, though it has cooled off a bit, and will be coming out of there in the next few days.

Sounds like everything you are doing right now is spot on, though I haven't had to ever salt water bath my 2.

Good luck and keep us informed how it's going!

The tank is about 70 litres and quite long. water changes, roughly 30% every couple of days with a bigger one every week or so. It feels really counter intuitive putting fresh water animals in salt water... but everything i've read says that's what to do for fungus. Thank you i will do.

Well if you left a freshwater in saltwater to long it is very corrosive to their skin, but it is the best treatment for fungus, just keeping them in a weak salt bath for 15minutes or less twice daily till the fungus is gone.
But only doing it if there is fungus is key because it is stressful on them. if you think fungus may start to grow I use the preventive black tea baths, less stressful and it helps soothe their skin and prevent fungus! beautiful isnt it??

how old are you babies? Fridging them is not recommended if they are to young, I was even hesitant to put my 4month old juveniles in the fridge due to heat.
Do you have a thermometer? what is the temp? It would be safer to keep your babies at a constant 74F then to put them in the fridge. if it is ANY higher then 74 then its worth the risk of the fridge.

Have you tried putting them in a tuperware container. doing 100% water changes daily and putting the tuperware container in the coolest corner of your house, floors are awesome! it can change the temperature from 74 down to 70 or even lower just by changing locations! my guppy tank is in the living room and its at 88F with no heater, and my axolotls sit in my bedroom at 68 currently, but normally around 70. just to give you an idea of how a simple move can change it!

plus if they are in tuperware containers getting 100% water changes daily you dont need to worry about water quality being the issue right? so that eliminates one possible issue. the temp like I said I would NOT recommend the fridge for babies! unless 100% needed but it may kill them, I had to fridge a sick baby and it did not make it out alive! less then 24hours and it died.

Keep doing very weak salt baths for the fungus but stop it as soon as you see that the fungus has disapeared. after each salt bath, remove lotl and put in fresh water, in your new cool area of your house. tuperware containers for babies I find easier because you can move them around as needed. find the perfect spot!

I just looked through your other threads. . your babies are about 2"?? You could possibly be okay keeping them in the fridge, but really if you could find somewhere to keep it around 68-70F it probably would be better. My "babies"(I call them babies because I raised them from eggs) are 5 1/2" and I did not want to put them in the fridge. I also have one baby who is the same age, but only about 2" but he has fluid retention and I am just trying to keep him as comfy as possible till he dies(he has been like this for over 2months!) and I knew if I put him in the fridge he would of died, and he lived through our heat wave when the rest went into the fridge! actually didnt seem stressed at all.

Ok so tea baths for dash and salt for lottie. I don't like having them in the fridge but it's the only alternative as the coldest room in the house is no longer cold enough, but i will keep a towel or two wrapped around them so they don't get too cold. Thank you for your advice it's been really helpful I don't know what i would have done without this forum . So i'll just do my best and cross my fingers.

Incredibly, i just checked on them and both are acting like themselves again, must have been the heat, i'll continue to keep an eye on them and update but i'm feeling much better about their health already, once they are nice and fattened up again and lotties looking less like candy floss they should be fine.

xoloto i just saw your post and yes that is what it looks like!

Slight problem with lottie, although i'm not sure it is a problem as she's fridged, but she's not eating very much, she is eating, but not as much as i'd like.

When lotls are in the fridge they often won't eat so unless she is very thin I wouldn't worry about it in the short term. Also remember to check the temp of the water that she is in when in the fridge. I use a digital propagating thermometer that I got from a hardware store.

Thank you They're looking much better and actually eating more, which is weird with them being in the fridge.

Glad they're looking better!

As far as the eating goes, not too much of a worry as the metabolism slows waaay down, so they don't use up the calories in the fridge. Mine ate once, then threw it up. They've been in the fridge for almost 2 weeks, and look fine. Haven't lost any weight at all and are happy as, well, 'lotls!

Well that's good to know
Just curious would you recommend trying to remove some of the fungus?
I've seen it suggested and just wondering if it might help speed up healing.

My flatmate removed a clump of fungus from her axy's leg. To me it seems to have helped because the fungus didn't come bath (He was getting daily salt baths too though) but when she did it it obviously hurt the little guy I think because the fungus grew on a toe that was dangling off and when she removed the fungus she also (unintentionally) plucked off the dangly toe aswell. So if you can gentle pull it off go ahead. It won't make it worse

Awh poor thing!! but if it helped it was worth it. There's nothing hanging off just an unexplained fungus down his sides, it does seem to have spread though even though he's in the fridge.

i'm sorry to here about your sick axie

i hope he gets better soon, it's funny hearing about a heat wave because here it is mid winter and i am worrying about it being too cold!