Urgent! Swolled head, gills curled!

I came home last night and my 6mo. GFP that I've raised from a baby was dead. It looked fine 24hrs before. It's bottom jaw was so swollen its head looked like a grape. And the gills were curled completely forward into a full circle. It's gills and veins looked brown. When I removed it from the tank it's skin sloughed off like glue on my hands and was very hard to wash off. I took it out and did a water change on the tank. I have a 1yr golden and and Andersoni that I just got still in the tank. This morning I woke up to my golden the same way. Gills curled all the way forward and brown along with all the veins. The head severly swollen and body completely stiff. But he's still ALIVE! He can only move his gills a little.

The only thing new in the tank is the Andersoni I got a little over a week ago. It's a bare bottom 10 gal I use for my small axies before I let them play w/ the adults. I do regular water changes. I take good care of my axies and I'm not a "newbie" to the axie world. The golden was being picked on so I moved him in for a week or so to get fat and happy again. My golden and GFP have been so health for 6mo.+ I don't understand how they could go downhill so fast. This is the strangest thing I've ever seen. I feed then tubifex, nightcrawlers, redworms, pellets. Could it be bad worms? That sounds silly to me. Maybe its something the Anderson has that's toxic to my axies? Bacteria maybe? It looks like they went septic to me from something but my Andersoni is fine still.

I gave my golden fresh water and put him in the fridge. I still think he's going to die, but what should I do?

ive never even heard of this. can you post pictures? it sounds horrible.

I'm sorry you are going through this. It looks possible that the Andersoni could have been the cause, additions to any tank should be quarantined for around 30 days before introducing to the main tank. I dont know much about mixing species but if you think that he is toxic then I would recommend keeping separately, as that seems to have been the only change you made. I hope that your golden pulls through, a bit of tlc might work, good luck and keep us posted!!

Sorry to hear that sounds horrific Agree with laalflaach all new additions should be quarantined for at least 30 days incase they are carrying anything nasty!! Speaking of which nasty tubifex worms are also a no no as they can carry parasites & dangerous bacteria especially if live ones? Axies just need a nice diet of mainly earthworms / nightcrawlers, bloodworms or axie pellets. Fingers crossed for your golden :happy:

Also not sure if I am reading this right but how big is your andersoni and axie as 10gallons is a pretty small tank, ahve you checked your water parameters??

Didnt know that about tubifex, I have a tubifex and daphnia farm on the go, obviously the tubifex are far too small for the babies, they are there for the daphnia to feed from, apparently they feed off tubifex waste, but it just goes to show, you learn something new everyday!! Thanks zoezakella, you are a mine of information!!

no worries hun!! xx

my golden died too... it's been a couple days, and now my Andersoni is bloated. looks like s/he is going to explode. so it's sick too, but not in the same way as the axies. it is in the fridge right now. Whatever happened was a major thing. like i said it happened so fast. fine then 12-24 hrs later dead. They were in the tank for little over a week before this happened and i did 2-3 water changes. i have not tested the water yet.

it is a 10 gallon tank i use to quarantine new axolotls. they don't permanently live there. my 5 adults are in the big tank and safe. the GFP was still a juvenile and i was trying to get s/he a little bit bigger. i guess i should have moved it over before getting the andersoni (also juvenile), but when i found one for sale for a GREAT price. well you might have done the same? the golden just stopped eating worms and i moved him to eat the tubifex for awhile.

i don't feed tubifex to my adults, only nightcrawlers, redworms, and pellets. i always feed my babies tubifex until they are big enough to eat the good stuff. I've never had a problem before, that's why i think it's weird. lesson learned I guess?

did your andersoni pull through?

Tubiflex worms should never be used as food they are a well known carrier for many bacterial diseases. Commanly these infections cause bloat in fish.

Coastal Groovin said:

Tubiflex worms should never be used as food they are a well known carrier for many bacterial diseases. Commanly these infections cause bloat in fish.

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I'm sure on cc or axolotl.org it says you *can* feed tubifex.
I've fed my axolotls it as a treat with no issues.....


Sent,using the power of my mind.....

Just a little something I found on the internet in 10 seconds of looking.......Using tubifex as a live food has come with certain problems over the years. When harvested from sewers, open bodies of water, and even from hatcheries, tubifex may come with various diseases. This risk can be partially solved by keeping the worms under brisk running water until they have voided the contents of their digestive system. However, the tubifex can still be vectors for whirling disease, which can affect salamanders, and certain tropical fish. Additionally, tubifex are very difficult for some fish to obtain in the wild, so certain fish, such as rift valley cichlids will obsessively consume tubifex until they make themselves sick. Additionally, while tubifex have good quality proteins, they also are very fattening, and are poor in certain important ammino acids. Fish fed on tubifex can grow rapidly, but may be less healthy and colorful than fish with a more balanced diet.

@ Coastal Groovin- what is your source for that information?

I see this thread is four months old, did you find what the problem was? I am assuming it wasn't your household water supply as only one tank was effected and as you're not a noob it probably wasn't poor water quality, temp , etc. The tubifex has drawn some attention as a potential problem from a couple of posts, so it would be interesting to see how that works out. However if environmental conditions are ruled out it leaves biological and chemical problems. The new andersoni might have introduced a disease to the tank, the fact that it showed different symptoms may because it is a different species. Is it possible the tank was accidently poisoned ? By a new cleaning product, air freshener, was the bucket for a water change contaminated? Where other tanks in the room unaffected? Or was that tank in a room on its own? Hope you track down the problem.

I am very lucky to grown up in a neighborhood where on every block in my neighborhood there was a tropical fish breeder in the 50's and 60's. There is a house just down the block from me that still has the cement ponds in the basement. Many of the old timers told me that tubiflex were great because it was free but had its drawbacks because they also made fish sick at times. Here are some links talking about it. The one link even talks about doseing them with anti-biotics before useing them as food. There are many more articles about the hazards of tubiflex worms on the net if you want to look about for them. Its not a secret but it does get over looked in the amphibian community. Fish breeders know the drawbacks though.

Tubifex Worms

Tubifex Worms

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~davidr/discus/articles/tubifex.html

Coastal Groovin said:

I am very lucky to grown up in a neighborhood where on every block in my neighborhood there was a tropical fish breeder in the 50's and 60's. There is a house just down the block from me that still has the cement ponds in the basement. Many of the old timers told me that tubiflex were great because it was free but had its drawbacks because they also made fish sick at times. Here are some links talking about it. The one link even talks about doseing them with anti-biotics before useing them as food. There are many more articles about the hazards of tubiflex worms on the net if you want to look about for them. Its not a secret but it does get over looked in the amphibian community. Fish breeders know the drawbacks though.

Tubifex Worms

Tubifex Worms

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~davidr/discus/articles/tubifex.html

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Interesting articles, have you any more on the potential health problems to amphibians ? What may be a problem with fish may not correlate to being a problem for axolotls.

I fed a starving axi I was looking after some tubiflex, and she or he ended up smothered in fungus and she was so tiny it literally killed her in a day, there were other underlining problems but I myself wouldnt reccomend tubiflex, and it wasnt the temp that caused it. Tubiflex are 'dirty' worms and as a lot of people say if in doubt leave it out!

LeFarge said:

did your andersoni pull through?

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No, it died shortly after my last post. I was pretty beat up about the whole thing. I'm still not sure what happened. It would be so easy to blame the worms, but I've never heard of them causing more then a topical fungal/bacterial infection.

I raised 60 kaiseri larvae on tubifex, bbs, daphnia and blackworms, and had no issues out of the ordinary. I rinse them daily as if they were blackworms.

How terrible! I'm so sorry for your loss.

I suppose it's probably too late to suggest this, but did you perhaps save one of the bodies for a vet examination, just to see if you could find out what it was?