Floating? Nervous Newbie

Hi all, I just received a leuistic female axolotl the other day (Biology department has a surplus at my school) and she seems to be doing well. I fed her the first time with a pellet food yesterday and it seemed all was well. Today she seems fine, but her back legs keep floating and I've found her floating near the top which hasn't been normal. Water temperature is normal, I have turned off the filter until I can fix the high current problem I have with it, and everything else seems normal. I have her in a 10-gallon tank, no substrate as of yet.

Through some research, I figure she might be constipated or have gas. I've placed her in a smaller container with a little bit of cool water so that it covers her and her back legs can touch the bottom. I'm still rather nervous about all of this, so I was just wondering if anyone else had tips? She doesn't seem overly stressed...but I worry anyway. Any help or suggestions would be great!

Yep, probably gas.

Mine got this a lot when I first had her - I don't know if stress contributes to it, or maybe a change of diet issue.

As for filters, have you considered a sponge filter ?

Do you have any hides in the tank ? When mine had gas / constipated, she would like to go in the hide so it would keep her from floating away.

And if/when you get substrate, remember to go for sand ! No gravel as they can swallow it and choke / become impacted and die. Axolotls aren't the brightest creatures when it comes to eating whatever's in front of them, unfortunately.

She seems to be floating a lot less this morning and she did poo. She's also skinnier (though I didn't think she seemed overly bloated) so I think gas/constipation was the problem. I moved her back into her main tank and so far so good . I bought her some worms so hopefully a little variation in diet will help.

I have a clay pot for her, but I don't think she's figured out that she can hide in it yet XD.

I'll make sure to go with sand . Thanks for the tips!

Your not talking about MSUM, are you? I've recently gotten in contact with one of the professors about visiting their Axolotl colony.

Actually yeah XD. I'm a senior at MSUM.

Neat, I went to Ndsu. Small world X)!

Awesome! Haha, that it is