Illness/Sickness: Axolotl skin irritation/discoloration?

[CaptainScruffy]

Hey there, relatively new to the forums and caring for my first axolotl, Mjoll. he is roughly 5 inches long and as of lately has developed some sort of discoloration on almost his whole body now except for his head are a sort of pale blueish white! it doesnt appear to be fuzzy or in blobs like I see most fungal infections. He is eating well and just as active as before and seemed unphased by it until tonight I noticed him try to 'scratch' his skin with his hind leg as if it where bothering him. id really like some advice on what I should do. should I try and give him a salt bath? would nitrates be the cause? any advice is greatly appreciated.

Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
nitrates-40 (could this be the cause? its been going on for over a week so id figure its not the nitrates as ive changed the water)

 

[hannahll]

what's your temp at? they can pretty easily get heat exhaustion.
& if his skin seems irritated, maybe a salt bath?

 

[michael]

That picture looks like normal coloration.

 

[Tephra]

One of my axies looks like that. Normal coloration, so nothing to worry.

 

[FX1C]

what's your temp at? they can pretty easily get heat exhaustion.
& if his skin seems irritated, maybe a salt bath?

It's looks totally normal - I wouldn't worry

Trying to get nitrates down is good I try for under 20
It just requires turkey basting out poops & twice weekly water changes.

You could try more soothing treatments like black tea (links in sick axolotls sticky) or an dried almond leaf if you have them available rather than salt which should only be done if its starts looking like white fluff.

Such a lovely looking axolotl just gorgeous & chubby



<3 >o_o< <3

 

[CaptainScruffy]

Thank you for all the replies! As for my temp. It is usually between 65 and 68 sometimes it creeps up to 70 for maybe a few hours before I realize and bump up the AC. idk, if it's just me, but sometimes I feel like the pale area expands/shrinks. As sometimes he doesn't appear to have it on his legs or as far down his tail. I noticed him try and nibble at his tail and chase it like a puppy, but it was kind of eradicate like it bothered him.. I will look Into black tea baths. Any more advice is greatly appreciated! It's so nice having a supportive and knowledgeable community for my Caudates!

 

[michael]

If you start to medicate and treat an axolotl that is not sick it will be sick soon.

 

[FX1C]

Thank you for all the replies! As for my temp. It is usually between 65 and 68 sometimes it creeps up to 70 for maybe a few hours before I realize and bump up the AC. idk, if it's just me, but sometimes I feel like the pale area expands/shrinks. As sometimes he doesn't appear to have it on his legs or as far down his tail. I noticed him try and nibble at his tail and chase it like a puppy, but it was kind of eradicate like it bothered him.. I will look Into black tea baths. Any more advice is greatly appreciated! It's so nice having a supportive and knowledgeable community for my Caudates!

Depending on how large your tank is you can add black tea to your tank without having to remove the axolotl or stress it out.

What I do is add 1 cup of black tea that has steeped for 10minutes for every 10Litres of water. I find it very useful for toughening up the sensitive slime coat & for treating inbetween salt baths to soothe irritated slime coat.

I usually add it to a small quarantine tank but I have added it to my 4ft tank when I had a couple of rescues who'd get a slight bit of reoccurring fungus on their gills. It seems to stave off fungus returning. I did 20% water changes every 2nd day which dilutes & slowly removes the tea - you can add more tea if the condition looks like it's persisting.





<3 >o_o< <3

 

[CaptainScruffy]

Ive done more research and came up with that same article on tea baths. I also found that the pale patches that appear to be on mjoll are documented in one of the articles on here about illnesses. it appears to be the same problem, it says the cause is unknown but may be a protozoan problem? it said the tea baths cleared the problem right up. I think ill try and put tea in his home tank as opposed to a quarantine tank, simply for the fact that my quarantine tank is now housing a betta and soon to be red cherry shrimp and i dont want to stress out anybody. my tank parameters appear to be relatively in the clear. and from that article there are no known negative affects of tea baths so thats what im going to try. any objections? any more advice/experience on tea baths? I have a 20 gallon high so roughly 76 lites, so 7-8 tea bags steeped in boiling water and cooled?

 

[FX1C]

I would steep 6-7 teabags & make up 1.75L of tea - then chill it.

Don't forget to dechlorinate the water.
(accurately measured) either once the tea has cooled or boil dechlorinated
water in a pot (not the kettle! )

Please keep up updated on how you go with this treatment I'm sure it'll be fine.



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[CaptainScruffy]

Thank you! Im currently sitting in a dentist chair about to hate my life! I'll start treatment today. I think I have enough information to not mess anything up

 

[CaptainScruffy]

Hey all, 1 Day after the treatment and Mjoll appears to be doing better! its kind of hard to get a good look at him because my tank water is very dark and my lights are dim but I snuck a peak with my flash light and his fronds seem healthier as well as his skin. great!

My next question is how often am I supposed to be doing water changes to dilute the tea? and how much water?

 

[FX1C]

Great news that the tea is working.
Hope you recovered from
the dentist

If you do a 20% change every second day it will dilute down eventually.

If you need to add more tea then I'd do a slightly larger change 40% & add tea to the new water.

I've not had to add tea more than once with the treatments I've carried out.

Let us know how it goes



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