Illness/Sickness: Axies Tail shrunk looking pale and won't eat.. Help!

[Cahand]

Our Axolotl was looking very healthy lately until today.

He wasn't moving just sitting in the corner and was not looking so hot. I noticed the blood worms in his dish were still there from last his last meal.

His tail completely shrank. from on top of his body it is almost non existent now and his tail fin has shrank dramatically.

we put him into a tupperware container to try and clean out the tank and feed him something else. He attempted to eat a piece of earth worm but it looked like he was having trouble chewing it and then just spit it out.

he did try again and ate a smaller piece.

we also tried feeding him some brine shrimp and he ate a tiny bit and left the rest.


We are wondering if his condition has something to do with the temperature changing a lot lately? we have had the window open lately and it has been fluctuating his tank from 70-63 degrees within 12 hours.

Another issue that we think it might be is, the bloodworms got left out one night and then were re frozen.. most likely a mistake on our part and we need to get new ones.

Our current levels for our tank are..

Ammonia: .25
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
P.H.: 6.8

Before: http://imgur.com/SAbs57w

After:

The top part of his tail is almost gone. Compare to Before pic and my avatar pic.
http://imgur.com/BxahUc7

He has like a kind of white looking stuff on him? doesn't look healthy :/
http://imgur.com/1Vnkmjh
http://imgur.com/uSTMYym


Thank you any help would be appreciated!

 

[sabre]

Thank you for all that information!

Either your tank cycle has crashed at some point, or you never had it established in the first place because you should have some nitrAte reading and instead you have Ammonia which is really not a good thing. Out of curiosity, did you use a liquid test kit or strips to test your water?

If you've put him back in the tank, I would definitely advise taking him back out to a separate container of cool, clean dechlorinated water immediately.

Why are the photos of him in the container so cloudy looking? I really can't see the tail shrinking or the white stuff, but maybe someone else can? :/

Also, I think that temperature swing is too severe. Even without the ammonia, that could have stressed him out. Do you have some place that you could put him that would stay at a more stable, cool temperature? I think it's good that he still seems interested in food. That's why I'm not sure it would be right to fridge him. I'm sure someone will have a more educated opinion on that.

Here's an article about keeping the tank cool, in case that helps. http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cooling.shtml

And another one about the cycle in case you hadn't done that or need a refresher. http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml

And one on water quality because it's important. http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/waterquality.shtml

 

[Cahand]

Either your tank cycle has crashed at some point, or you never had it established in the first place because you should have some nitrAte reading and instead you have Ammonia which is really not a good thing. Out of curiosity, did you use a liquid test kit or strips to test your water?

We use a liquid test kit.
and I'm not entirely sure if we cycled it before. I dont think we were even aware what cycling was when we got him but he has seemed to be very healthy and social with us for the 2 months we have had him, and never had any extreme levels of ammonia or anything.

If you've put him back in the tank, I would definitely advise taking him back out to a separate container of cool, clean dechlorinated water immediately.

The Second picture: imgur: the simple image sharer

shows the above view you can kind of see cloudy spots on him, (I didn't really notice it until taking this picture)

Why are the photos of him in the container so cloudy looking? I really can't see the tail shrinking or the white stuff, but maybe someone else can? :/

The other two pictures are cloudy because of the color of the tupperware container and I was taking it through the side.

If you look at the very top of him in this pic: imgur: the simple image sharer
quality kind of sucks, but you can see a small color change from his body and his top fin.
(its very small now and i'd say maybe a 1/16th of an inch.

compared to imgur: the simple image sharer You can clearly see he has a big healthy fin.


Also thank you for the additional links and help. I'd love some more feedback we are very worried about him!

 

[Cahand]

We are going to try and do that salt baths and get him some fresh new food, if anyone has any tips for the salt baths and fridging him that would be awesome.

I am just going to get tap water and put stress coat in it, and make a salt water mixture with NON-idonise (I don't remember how to say that last part).
I will change his dechlorinated water everyday while he is in the fridge.


I really hope this works, : /
So nervous.

 

[michel3171]

I hope you will get your axie better!

Here is the saltbath tutorial!
Good luck!!
*edit*
And here is the fridging tutorial!

 

[Cahand]

We gave him 3 salts baths, once every 12 hours while fridging him for about 48hours. and after the first two all the stuff on his skin seemed to fall right off. He is looking better and his tail has started to grow back.

we took him out of the fridge this morning and after his third salt bath we let him begin to warm up for about 5-6 hours. once he was around 60-62f we decided he looked good enough to go back into his home.

while this was taking place we did about 4gallon water changes about 3 times in order to get the ammonia level down.

The ammonia was down to .25 after the water changes and I read around that this would not be toxic to him but to continue working on getting it to 0.

He is back in his 20gallon tank swimming around and seems to be calming down a bit.

I'll try and feed him later tonight once he has settled in but he seems to be doing better!

 

[Tburton]

He isn't looking so good about 24 hours after being in the old tank...

After he got in the tank he was really happy and swimming around.
He only ate half of his meal he normally eats the whole thing

His gills are looking really odd and curving up and different directions.
it also looks like theres something right on top of his head.. not sure what it would be.
Picture Here
Temp: 66f
pH:6.8
Ammonia: .25
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0


Please Help!

 

[Quentari]

I'd take him back out. Maybe you need to "restart" the tank and take everything out and clean it? it sounds like whatever was stressing him out is still there

 

[Cahand]

I just put him in new water now that wasnt in the tank so hopefully that will help