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Illness/Sickness: Axolotl is on the brink of death

Bitterrfly

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I have a 4 year old axolotl that I've kept in a 75 gallon aquarium. She's been kept in the same conditions for all those year but suddenly just stopped eating all together. It's been 5 weeks now since she's eaten. Normally I would do like I do with any of my other pets and take her to a vet, but apparently there are no vets in Vancouver Canada that will even see an amphibian, let alone an Axolotl...

She's 9.5 inches in length. She was in perfect health, being fed a diet of frozen blood worms and earth worms, I use large sponge filters in the aquarium to have minimal water currents, and plenty of fake plants and hides. There is no light of the aquarium and my bedroom (where the aquarium is located) rarely has the light on. There is natural light on the side of the room farthest away from the aquarium from a window. I have tried force feeding her for a week after 3 weeks of not eating (it was very stressful and she just kept regurgitating the food or finding ways to pretend she swallowed it then spit it up 2-3 hours later). I put her in the fridge for a week at 5 degrees celcius with a dark cloth over the container of water but she still seems to be in the same condition. Besides when I was force feeding her, she is showing no signs of stress, besides being rediculously skinny from not eating, she looks still in top form. I had my water tested at a pet store but everything seems to be within perfect conditions for axolotls. I am all out of ideas on what to do. The only thing I can think of that was different this year was we are having a hotter longer summer than normal.


Any advice at all is appreciated! I just really want her to get better.
 

Skudo09

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If she is skinny and not eating, fridging will not help her. The cold temperature in the fridge will be slowing her metabolism down so she will be unlikely to eat there. Did the store give you the readings for your tank? What was the temperature in the tank?
 

Sweetie

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Temperature was my first thought too - either fluctuating, or too high or most likely both - and I doubt taking the lotl in and out of the fridge would help either. As noted, fridging would slow the metabolism and depress appetite. On the other hand, higher temperatures would tend to increase the metabolism (and the appetite), and unless the axie is showing other signs of stress (such as frantic swimming), it is hard to conclude that temperature is the culprit. Could you provide pics of the axie and the set-up?
 
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