Delzoun
New member
Hello all! I would first like to say hello as I am new here. Well that was redundant.. Anyways, I recently have gotten an axolotl (Lieutenant Milak) just a week ago. This is my first time, so of course I'm going to have some concerns. He is 6 months old and had a slight fungal infection which most had cleared up by the time I had got him. I've been treating him and it seems that he has no more fungus on him. But I am unsure when he will have no more fungus. The first day I fed him a half cube of bloodworms. He allowed me to hand feed him and he ate most of it. The next day he seemed well and showed no signs of stress. He again let me feed him a half cube. The third day is when he started showing signs of stress. His tail was curved to an extreme point. I knew it couldn't be because he didn't have a place where he could hide, because I had more than enough places. I did water tests and it showed all good signs for him. Temperatures seemed cool enough. I rotated the nozzle for my rena xp1 filter towards the wall which showed much less stress. He did not eat though. His tail was curved a slight amount at the end, which I thought was going to be gone the next day. But it wasn't. It seemed even more stressed. I tried many different ideas and did water changes, but he was still stressed. Finally, I decided maybe I should just let him be for a while. I fed him some blood worms, as expected, he did not eat. I left my room and a few minutes later, went to go check on him. I was checking so he didn't see me, and I saw him eating just fine. I had confirmed he was shy when he saw me and hid in his log. I would like to know if it's something that I am doing to cause him to be shy, or if he is shy. Or is it just that he was naturally shy. Another concern is that on one corner of my tank, he seems to keep digging at the sand substrate there until it is stripped of the sand there. I'm confused, as I have looked up everywhere of any reports of axolotls digging at one part. I do not know if this is just natural, and noone bothers with it because it's common. Or if this is an issue that nobody has noticed. Today I have added a wisteria plant, planted some water lily and onion bulbs, added tubifex worms to his diet, and put some japanese shrimp in the tank to see if anything has helped reduce his stress. After rigorous work of everything floating and trying to plant things in the substrate. He seemed a little less stressed. But he still is stressed even when I'm not there. If there is any information you would like to know to help me with this. Please ask and thank you if you have any ideas on helping me with my situation. Thank you for your patience of reading my long report.