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Question: Spits out all food, starving.

XYZAXIES

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Spits out all food, starving. HELP!

Hello I am seeking advice for my leucistic axolotl as she is not eating and just spits out all food I try to give her, she has no appetite. I try to feed her frozen bloodworm and cut up earthworms but she just plays around with it and then spits it out and pellets she just refuses to eat. Most of the time she doesn’t even bother taking in the food she just ignores it. I have sometimes seen her sitting with her back legs as a V showing she may be constipated. She used to eat fine and had an appetite and devour food until she laid fertilised eggs 5 months ago ( I removed them and raised them). Ever since then she has eaten barely anything and it has got to the point where she is so so skinny and has small gills and I’m very worried. I thought that it was just a phase but now I am worried for her survival as she is so skinny. She shares her 4ft tank with a wild type male and female and river shrimp. The water is low flow and temperature stays around 18C-20C ( I use ice bottles to cool the tank and always keep the tank as cool as possible.) The ammonia is safe <0.02 ppm and PH is 5.8. She acts normal and swims about like normal just won’t eat. Her tankmates have a massive appetite and eat and act fine. Please can anybody help me I would really appreciate it, thank you.
 

KumquatSquats

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Oh ok a few weeks ago my PH was 7.4 and she still wasn’t eating. Thanks I will still get the PH up but I don’t think it is the problem.
a PH swinging from 7.4 to 5 is HUGE. each change by 0.1 is 10X more/less acidic
imagine chilling in a bathtub, but now all the water is replaced by orange juice, then hydrochloric acid. that's what your tank is like right now.


also a ph under 6 tends to kill all your beneficial bacteria so you are likely looking at a crashed cycle. you REALLY need to increase your KH if your pH is swinging so wildly. Google can tell you how to increase pH and KH slowly so you dont shock them but you do need to raise that soon.
 

XYZAXIES

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a PH swinging from 7.4 to 5 is HUGE. each change by 0.1 is 10X more/less acidic
imagine chilling in a bathtub, but now all the water is replaced by orange juice, then hydrochloric acid. that's what your tank is like right now.


also a ph under 6 tends to kill all your beneficial bacteria so you are likely looking at a crashed cycle. you REALLY need to increase your KH if your pH is swinging so wildly. Google can tell you how to increase pH and KH slowly so you dont shock them but you do need to raise that soon.

Oh my god:eek:thank you!
 
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