Deliberately floating

Hi!

My boyfriend and I are fairly new owners of a white Axie called Jarvis. We inherited him from a friend in August/Sept this year since he could no longer take care of him. Jarvis has settled into his new life here, but his behaviour recently has been confusing us slightly....bare with me because I will have to start from the beginning to give you all the info!.....

When he first came to us, his tank had stones in the bottom of it, which were quickly removed by us because we realised Jarvis was swallowing them when he began floating and got a swollen tummy. He continued to eat his blood worms normally during this time and is still eating normally now after passing all the stones. (We know he has definitely passed the stones because we put him into solitary and monitored his poop...how lovely!) the swelling went down and he stopped floating for a good while. His tank is still bare at the bottom.
However, he has started floating again and we have lowered the water level in his tank right down so he can touch the floor. The other day when I looked in at him his belly wasnt swollen any more and all four of his legs were on the floor....but I caught him red handed....he took in two huge big gulps of air and his belly swelled straight up causing him to float again! Is this normal behaviour for an axolotl? We want to be able to fill the water level back up again because I feel sorry for him being stuck at the bottom all the time, but we tried adding a bit more water the other day and he just got stressed out because he couldnt touch the bottom anymore.
My boyfriend thinks its because he doesnt like the feel of the bare glass under him so is deliberately floating to get away from it....I wondered if he wasnt able to breathe properly due to the filter not being on in such a low tank, although the water is being changed every day. Its stressing me out seeing him like this, I feel like he is suffering and theres nothing we can do, we really have tried everything!

Sorry for the long winded story! If anyone has experienced this or has any advice please get in touch!

C and J

This is normal. As long as he sinks to the bottom at will, and isn't having trouble getting to the bottom, he should be fine.

You could try to put in another substrate. Sand is very popular.

I will move this to the axolotl area of the forum, as it will get read more.

Our little one Albi floats 50% of the time at the moment, and I'm pretty sure when I first got Roscoe I had a 'Oh no, is he broken? I know, I'll ask on the forum' moment, haha!

Roscoe still very occasionally gets, ummm, gas, but it soon passes. There's definitely a difference between gassy floating which stresses them as they scrabble for the bottom of the tank, and the casual, zoned out floating for the fun of it.

As far as the tank bottom goes, I took the gravel out of mine pretty quickly too, and replaced it by sand. A lot of folks say bare glass stresses them out as they can't get any grip, but I've seen a lot of pics in the gallery of bare bottoms (the tank kind ) so I guess it's a case of watching Jarvis and deciding if he's bothered. A thin layer of sand might be a plan?

There's a small bare patch of glass in the corner of our tank at the mo, where I poured water in a little vigorously, and they are absolutely FASCINATED with it, it's the best thing ever, for some reason. Constant source of amusement, axolotls! Congrats on inheriting Jarvis, he's sure to give you a lot of enjoyment (and occasional stress over weird behaviour)!

Thanks for the comments folks! We are considering getting him some sand, as we do think this might be part of the problem.
As I say, when we tried adding more water to the tank again (Just enough to get his feet off the ground) he got stressed out so thinking there may be some gas problem too. He does seem to be happy enough, still eating and responding to us when we talk to him, but it's just distressing seeing him like this. Some days he's more swollen than others.
He certainly is a funny little thing, just cant wait til we get him sorted :happy:

Hope everyone had a great xmas, and here's to a great new year too!

If you're not sure about the sand (there seems to be an 'anti-sand movement' out there for some reason), there are a fair few tanks out there with slate tiles as the substrate. Some people find those easier to keep clean and its texture is rough enough for an axy to get a grip on and walk across comfortably.

Have a look at http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-beginner-newt-salamander-axolotl-help-topics/f48-axolotls-ambystoma-mexicanum/f59-tank-set-ups-filters-substrate/67384-tile-slate-bottoms.html

edit - ps. merry Christmas to you too!

Hi,

I don't know how to help the floating, one of my mine occasionally does it for fun but I've never had it happen where it makes them stressed. I can however reccomend a great sand. Caribsea Super Naturals Tahitian Moon. Its easy to clean up after them (with a turkey baseter of course ) plus if they happen to eat some its so small they will just poop it right out no problem.And it doesn't disrupt the water parameters. Good luck!

I find my 2 mainly float when their tank is a little warmer than usual. Maybe trying to keep cool?
Just my 2c worth.