Question: Fluffy gills

Hi everyone. This has probably been asked a thousand times before, and I apologize for asking again, but does fluffly gills mean lots of oxygen in the tank, or not enough? I've searched around on different forums and everyone has a different answer. My little guy has lots of short fluffy gills so if he needs more air I'd like to know so I can put another bubbler in his tank. If not, great :happy:

Also, how often and how much should he be eating? He's about 4 inches long. Normally I give him a cut up earthworm in the morning, and then another at night. This morning though, he downed one earthworm, and was hunting for more, so I gave him another to see if he would eat it and he did. Granted they are kinda skinny and I cut them into thirds for him but will his little internal organs bust if he eats too much? I occasionally toss pellets in his tank, but he usually won't eat them unless he's really hungry.

Cold fresh water holds more dissolved oxygen. The fluffy fimbriae you speak of are generally longer when there is less oxygen readily available because they are used to absorb oxygen. Axolotls move their gills to disturb the oxygen in the water the fimbriae aids in disturbing the water and absorbing the oxygen.

If there is no water current in the tank Axolotls must move their gills to access the oxygen in the water which results in longer fimbriae. If there is a constant current with plenty of oxygen in the water then the gills/fimbriae are no longer needed as much which results in shorter fimbriae.

One of my tanks had a current of water from the filter which created a minor flow throughout the whole tank, the Axolotl in this tank had next to no fimbriae, after I tied a sponge in front of the water output to stop the current the fimbriae has begun to grown back.

As a juvenile at 4 inches you can feed up to 4 worms cut up a day depending on the worms size. Two in the morning and two at night will provide plenty of nutrition and help your Axolotl grow well. Your Axolotl will often spit out the worm if he is no longer interested in eating.

Thank you very much

I don't entirely agree. My tank sits at 14 to 15 degrees in this cooler weather, has a sponge at the filter that slows the flow but it still sends the duck weed tumbling through the tank, plus an air stone and my dude has fuzzy head ferns.

I think certain Axolotls are affected differently. Genes play a part.

All I know is that my Axolotl had long fimbriae when he was raised in a small non filtered tank but after putting him in a larger tank with a filter the fimbriae disappeared, after stopping the water flow of the filter the fimbriae are growing back.

Holly12 said:

my dude has fuzzy head ferns.

Click to expand...

Love it! :grin::rofl:

Lol, thanks

I immediately unplugged my air stone when I saw this thread lol

I use an air stone.... big head ferns.

I did put an airstone in his tank once for like half a day. I took it out because he started acting nervous and hid alot. All he has in his tank is a sponge filter. One side of his gills are nice and fluffly, but the other side not so much because a tank mate nibbled on him