Illness/Sickness: Axolotls with Hives/Irritated Bumpy Skin?

shannon246818

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Hello! My axolotls have recently come down with super irritated/bumpy looking skin. On my melanoid (Rich) you can see they are white, I'm not sure what "cottony fungus" means though. My golden albino (Lacy) has very glazed over eyes and bumps all over her face, arms, body, and back legs while Rich has it mostly just on back legs.
They have been fridging for about a week and eating OK, not lost any weight. I have been giving salt baths and been keeping them in water with indian almond leaves. I have left their tank alone and noticed that there is some white algae fuzz in the corners (the one part where our algae magnet can't reatch :mad: )

Should I empty out the tank and do a full clean?

The salt baths are working extremely slow. How often can I give them? Any Suggestions?
Please help! I feel so terrible my babies are separated from one another while usually they are such good pals and I'm sure they're bored to death in the fridge
 
PHOTOS) Axolotls with Hives/Irritated Bumpy Skin?

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I'm not an expert with this but I'd make sure you're changing the water 100% everyday and you do salt baths twice a day everyday for 2 or more if necessary a week since they seem to be working. I don't know if this will be really helpful but I hope I will work out.
 
I would honestly hold off on the salt baths for a little bit. For whatever reason, people seem to be under the impression that it's a "cure all" trick, when it isn't really. Salt baths, to the best of my knowledge, should be used when there is fungus present. Salt baths are highly irritating to the skin, and since I'm not seeing any fungus on your axolotls, I wouldn't be doing them.

You should be changing their tub water completely every day. If you haven't read the fridging guide, I'm pretty sure that it is a sticky-ed post in this forum. I would continue to fridge them until you're sure you know what's wrong.

Is your tank cycled? Your melanoid in particular looks red. If your tank is not cycled, it could potentially be ammonia burn. And the other question would be what temperature your tank usually maintains. Heat can do a number on an axolotl as well, as they're cold-water creatures.

If you have an API Freshwater test kit, I would test your water and post your results back here. If not, they're around $20 on amazon and absolutely a staple to keeping freshwater animals.

Hope this helps, and I'll try to get back to you quickly. :)
 
Please do not salt bathe an axie unless it has fungus that won't go away or a serious case of external parasites.
I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at in those photos, half of them are out of focus, the others show normal axie lumps and bumps.
If you've checked your parameters and they're all good then that's a good start.
If you can get some clear, in-focus pictures of what you think is wrong we can help a bit more.
 
I am not sure what the white bumps (most easily seen on my melanoid) could be besides fungus? Just checked the water parameters, although the tank has been empty for about a week as the axolotls have fridged.

I could only find API ammonia test strips and a MARINELAND 6-in-1 kit:
Ammonia: looks about in the middle between 0 and .5 ppm (mg/l)
PH freshwater: 6.2
Total alkalinity (KH) ppm: 0
Total chlorine: 0
Total hardness: 75
NITRATE (NO2): in between 0 and .5
Nitrate (NO3): 80

Here are more photos, (Excuse the bloodworms, they were just eating while I was taking the pics) Do you guys really not see the bumps? Was I overreacting? :confused:


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Nitrate 80 is highly toxic level already. I would removed your axie completely that way you can finish cycling your tank and get your nitrate down close to 0 as possible. What is the temperature of your tank?. There has been lots of battle lost with heat stress that kill many axie this pass few months. It's hard to tell the rash you mention from your picture , I don't yet seeing sigh of visible white fungus . But there are some fungus reaction that can cause red rash . For the less stress treatment I would recommend putting them in the fresh cold water container with a few drop of Pimafix. If your tank temperature is above 20c or 70f , maybe fridge your axie if you can't find any cooler place. Then treat your aquarium with Indian almond leaf extract after you completely your cycle. Your Nitrate should never be above 40 .
 
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