Illness/Sickness: Anorexic Axie!

[ErinDayle]

Hey all!

Hoping to get some help and guidance with what has become a pretty distressing issue.

My partner and I are relatively new to owning axies, and like you've probably experienced on this forum countless times, were given poor advice at the beginning of our axolotl journey.

Our Gonzalo WAS housed with goldfish, as we were told this was ok. This arrangement worked out perfectly fine for several months - the fish never bothered the axie and vice versa. Then one day everything changed and the fish became psycho bullies, beating up Gonzalo and his tank mate Darth. The subsequent result was two highly stressed axolotls with no remaining frills. We felt AWFUL. Obviously we separated them immediately and gave them some fridge recovery.

Sadly, I think Darth was too effected by the stress of it all (and I had my suspicions he was never totally healthy before I purchased him) and he passed away.
Gonzalo seemed to come through all right. He maintained an appetite and his frills have started regrowth.
Then, several weeks ago he stopped eating. This happened a few weeks after the fish bullying incident so I am not sure if it's related. He refused to eat for almost 5 weeks. He has become skinnier and skinnier and it's awful. About a week ago he regained interest in food and was eating TINY amounts (imo, not enough to be substantial, but I thought he may not be able to handle too much food right now.)
Now he seems interested in food, but takes ages to take it, and when he does, he spends an awful lot of time shaking it then spitting it in and out constantly before just spitting it out completely and ignoring it.
He's skeletal now and it's beyond distressing! He's clearly getting weak because he stumbles around and is not coordinated. He also goes on and off having floating episodes too.

.....Help?

 

[NexSocius]

Hi Erin,
I'm from Maryborough, so not far from you at all.
I'm still learning alot about axies, and am nowhere near as knowlegable as the people on here, but in the meantime we can start with the following questions:

1. What are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrate, and is your tank cycled?
2. What sort of substrate is in the tank? Sand, gravel, glass bottom or something else?
3. What are you feeding him?

I'm curious, did you buy your guys from a Bendigo pet store?
Hope we can help!

 

[layna]

Hey,
It would be very helpful if you could answer the questions, we need to know your water parameters(PH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate).
Have you cycled your tank?
Do you use a liquid test kit?
Also what is the water temp?

To feed him up you could try blackworms or waxworms until he gets to a healthier weight then move them back onto earthworms or axie pellets when he is eating more

 

[ErinDayle]

Hi guys,

Sorry for my lack of info. Things have gone haywire in my household, as a family member has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Don't fret, however, Gonzalo has not gone uncared for.

Now, I'm not going to be able to tell you exactly what the water parameters are, as my partner is the wizz and takes care of that. He reported them to be within normal ranges, though.

What we did come to realise is that the water in the tank was probably far to warm for the little guy. (Up to 23 degrees!) So we've been working on cooling everything down. Guess what? He's started eating ravenously again! It'll take him time to put the weight back on, but he already looks happier and brighter. He's no longer uncoordinated, he's swimming about again.

Just to answer your other questions, he is in a cycled tank, with a sand substrate. The filter is low-flow so as not to stress him out.
He has been getting fed earthworms, beefheart, and a heart/prawns combo (purchased from PetStock).

Hopefully the lil dude continues on this healthier path. Would the water being too hot be enough to cause this?

 

[ErinDayle]

Maryborough, hey? You aren't far from me at all!
Yeah, we did purchase him from a pet store in Bendigo - Pet Barn, to be precise.

 

[auntiejude]

Glad to hear he's recovering. Heat is notorious for killing apetite. British summer is nowhere near as hot as Aus, but my male lost his appetite for 6 weeks in our unusually hot summer this year. He has since recovered, plumped up and become a father.

I would skip the heart and prawns. Beef heart is hard for axies to digest, prawns can be salty (but OK if you soak them first) Stick with earthworms, maggots/waxworms or blood/blackworms. Freshwater shrimp are great fun too if you can find some (I don't know if you have anything like river shrimp over there), and axie-specific pellets are good too. I stick to handfeeding worms because I have 4 together and one of them would get all the food if I just left then to it (she's a piggylotl!).

If you haven't done so already I suggest you invest in a chiller. And slap whoever told you to keep your axies with goldfish!

 

[ErinDayle]

Glad to hear he's recovering. Heat is notorious for killing apetite. British summer is nowhere near as hot as Aus, but my male lost his appetite for 6 weeks in our unusually hot summer this year. He has since recovered, plumped up and become a father.

I would skip the heart and prawns. Beef heart is hard for axies to digest, prawns can be salty (but OK if you soak them first) Stick with earthworms, maggots/waxworms or blood/blackworms. Freshwater shrimp are great fun too if you can find some (I don't know if you have anything like river shrimp over there), and axie-specific pellets are good too. I stick to handfeeding worms because I have 4 together and one of them would get all the food if I just left then to it (she's a piggylotl!).

If you haven't done so already I suggest you invest in a chiller. And slap whoever told you to keep your axies with goldfish!

Thanks for the feeding tips! There's lots of wrong information out there - I'm glad I've found this forum!