Illness/Sickness: Red/Pink Toes. Help!

A little backstory,

A week or two ago I was really in a cleaning mood and decided to scrub my filter pad in a bucket of tank water, as well as cleaning off some of the walls of my tank. I also did about a 50 percent water change. Needless to say, I'm experiencing a cycle crash. Currently I'm going through a stubborn spike in Nitrite. I tried doing daily 20 percent water changes 5 days in a row, but the nitrite just wouldn't budge, so I decided to fridge my Axies until I can get my tank recycled.

Parameters: .25 Ammonia
1-2 Nitrite
about 5-10 Nitrate.

Advice there would be helpful, but on to the main issue:

Last night and today I've noticed a few of my Axolotl's toes were turning red when I checked on them in the fridge, as well as some black gunk in the water that occasionally clung to its other toes.

The black gunk I really can't say what it might be, it could just be some crazy kind of Axie excrement, I have no guesses here. There's not a lot of it in their containers, but It made me worry nonetheless. The small lump i removed seemed a little fibrous and congregated on what seemed like a 2ish inch human hair ( could have been mine)

Pictures below, please fill free to ask any questions that might help me diagnose and treat this.

(uploader wasn't working for me, so sorry for the large picture sizes below.)

Pink toe:



Black gunk:


P.s. If it's worth mentioning a couple of day before I fridged them Albi threw up. But this could be unrelated. I was feeding them some pellets(switched back to worms) that I think they were having trouble digesting. Aristotle's stomach looked like he still had part of a pellet in him, so that was my second reason for giving them a stay in the fridge.

Hi it is only a guess (based more on my fish than my lotles) but it might be a bit of ammonia burn. But I wouldn't take my word on it. Wait for an expert, but I would continue with the fridging, and daily water changes.

Ps, how are you feeding the tank with no lottles in it to create waste, I have herd of using the water from the containers the lotles are in (old water into tank, new declorinated into tub in fridge)

The ammonia levels are pretty tame right now, erm nitrite burn? And good suggestion on putting their container water into the tank. But more input needed, please!

I don't mean to be "that guy" but this thread has been read by 21 differnt people and I've only had one response? I did a search of the site and I could only find one unanswered thread on this issue. Does no one have any advice?

Even help on my cycling problem would be helpful.

I'm sorry your not getting much of a response to your problem,
Like I said keep putting your daily waste water into your tank, you can't recycle your tank with out a food source for the bacteria, I know if a lot of people that use thawed prawns but IMHO that just smells, and could introduce nastys, so do daily 20% water changes, then dump the waste water in, and keep testing.
As for the axie, keep fridging, changing the water daily, and begging for a expert to help, even though it's not been in the high ammonia tank for a while dosnt mean that it's not the ammonia that has caused it, it can take a few days to show. Sorry I can't be of more help. Hope someone else comes forward for you soon.

Good luck,

My biggest concern is the time crunch that I'm in. On Friday I'm leaving to visit relatives for a couple of days. I can train my roomie with the standard fridge precedure, but I'd like to make sure my Axie isn't suffering from anything fungal or bacterial until then.

If there are no white fluffy bits anywhere on the axie, just the red streaky bit then a couple of days should be no problem (as long as you feel you can trust whom ever is doing the daily maintenance ) I know how worieing it is when you fridge them
The clumpy hair mess type thing, is proberbly just that (have had similar looking stuff, and have always recognised a bit if hair,) and if it hasn't happened again, well then that's proberbly it.
And the fridge is proberbly the safest place for them right now.

I can only go on what I have done, etc when keeping my lottles, for the past four years. And I'm still hoping an expert, will give you some advice. Wether it backs up what I say or kicks it to the kerb.

Feeling for ya, it's frustrating when you know the help is out there, but no one seems to be looking when you need it.

Honey,
Occasionally during the odd tank emergency and my leucistic hasn't quite adjusted to the new water temp, his tail has gone a bit red or occaisionally his toes, a bit like yours. Just remember to keep a close eye on temperatures, make sure the water you are changing while he's fridging has also come out of the fridge, and get a good thermometer so you know he doesnt have any change in his usual temperature, not even a couple of degrees, without adjusting properly.
If he doesnt have fungus and he seems happy overall, it's my guess that you have a temperature sensitive axie.

Hope that helps - keep us posted.

xC