Illness/Sickness: New Axie is not doing well.

Hello all,
About a week ago I rescued an axolotl from a Local Fish Store that was keeping him in an 80 degree tank with gravel and a bunch of other fish. His gills didn't look very good but he was active and was eating fine.

Starting yesterday he wiggled his way between the wall of my tank and some decorations I was using to break the water current. He sits right where the water flows. I think maybe it is so he can get more oxygen? I'm not sure why he does this. Tonight he had his stomach touching the part of the filter that intakes water and was just sitting like he was stuck to it. When I put my hand down by him he swam away but after I get he went back.
I moved the filter to the other side of the tank and used a divider to make it so he cannot get to it.

His stomach is a lighter color than I remember and he is not interested in eating. I have this tank separated and 2 axies living in it right now.

Water temp is 60-62 degrees, ph is ok, ammonia is slightly high but I have been working to combat that problem.

I feed them red wigglers and bloodworms. Occasionally I mix brine shrimp with the blood worms even to give a more rounded diet.

The other axolotl is active and eating correctly but his gills are curled a bit. This tank has been running for a month and a half now but still has an issue with elevated ammonia levels. I am thinking of using reverse osmosis water for my water changes for a while.

Any help or ideas on what could be wrong would help a lot. Thanks guys!

UPDATE:
Today the axolotl was floating in the tank, I removed him and Placed him in the Fridge following the Fridging Guidelines Post. Water temp inside the fridge is 7 degrees Celsius. How often should I feed him while Fridging? How will I know when he has had enough time to recover? Anyone know what might have made this happen?

Thanks again guys! I hope to hear from you all soon.

Hey guys, tonight I did a water change in the container the Axie is in in the fridge and he was not very happy. I picked him up to move him from the container to a bowl of chilled water while i empted the container and while he was in there he swam around in circles and was upside down a bit too. He was ok with me handling him to put him back though. He didn't eat tonight, which is to be expected I suppose since his metabolism is slowed but it still worries me because he seems too skinny.
His stomach seems to have lost a bit of color. I will try to get pictures to post tomorrow.
He is a gunmetal grey color but his stomach has turned a really light grey. Could this be a skin condition?
His name is toothless because he looks like the Dragon from "how to train your Dragon"
Please help me out of anyone knows anything that can help!

Wyvell said:

Hey guys, tonight I did a water change in the container the Axie is in in the fridge and he was not very happy. I picked him up to move him from the container to a bowl of chilled water while i empted the container and while he was in there he swam around in circles and was upside down a bit too. He was ok with me handling him to put him back though. He didn't eat tonight, which is to be expected I suppose since his metabolism is slowed but it still worries me because he seems too skinny.
His stomach seems to have lost a bit of color. I will try to get pictures to post tomorrow.
He is a gunmetal grey color but his stomach has turned a really light grey. Could this be a skin condition?
His name is toothless because he looks like the Dragon from "how to train your Dragon"
Please help me out of anyone knows anything that can help!

Click to expand...

Hello there,

I am by no means an expert on this, but first thing you would like to eliminate is that ammonia for sure, you want that to be around zero mark, ideally a zero. It seems that your tank is still cycling even though you had it running for month.

How high the ammonia is exactly now?

What are your other water parameters?
PH:
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:

Once you rule out water quality related issues you can narrow down what else might be the problem.

Posting some pictures of the axie might help as well and bring more attention to your topic.

By the way love its name