Crashing axolotl....

[sharon]

Out of the 26 axolotls this is the only one I see doing this.

He swims to the surface for a gulp of air and darts back down to the bottom and CRASHES full force with his face. He pops back up and sorta floats, then drifts back down to the bottom of the tank.

This can't be normal. I've tried raising the water level but that hasn't changed anything.

He is an albino, could his eyesight be compromised?

Yeah, watching them now. Every one else does the "nose" up, landing gear down (feet) before reaching the bottom. But not this albino.

Sharon

 

[clarence]

I have one that does this occasionally. Seeing as it has beel about a week, is it still doing that?

 

[paris]

red eyed albinos -and blue eyed human ones are blind -they can see very little-sometimes even just light and dark and shadows. i have some sirens that do headstands sometimes-but then again they are not too upset to navigate upside down either. truth is that some in some batches are just going to be 'bad' -natural selection in the wild would take care of this. it is amazing how much in an organisms DNA that can go wrong and it still be a functioning being.(mishaps in the 'junk DNA') if it doesnt do well then consider it all for the better that its line ended there.

 

[hayden]

My Albino Clawed Frog does this al the time...Its very interesting to watch...although i dont think it harms them

 

[elisheba]

we have a wht. albino (pink eyes, etc) that we removed from the breeding program because, even separated from all the other axos with a divider in the community juvenile tank, she has managed to get her front rt leg munched 3 times now. this last time someone jumped the fence and ate 3 of her legs off (so now she only has stumps and one leg to tool around with...) she's going to have to be a 1-per-tank axo, i think.
i figure it's an eyesight thing, possibly in addition to some...er... defective processing... from all the genetic work that goes into making albinos.

actually, out of the 3 albinos we have, i would say they're all on the duller end as far as interaction and self protection...

 

[mik]

Elizabeth/Paris I beleive that the red eyed alibno is the result of a combination of d/d a/a.

I have two golden albinos and one albino all with clear coloured eyes not red or pink so by my theory they are a/a D/? and the white is a/a D/? /m/m).

All mine are youngsters about 6" in length so far but I haven't noticed any problems like this and they certainly are able to see something through the glass tank,as I get the typical begging stance. Also they know that when the lights are out it's time to get crazy. If I go into room at night and put lights on its instant shut down and telepathic "do you think he saw us?" mode.

So my point is if Elizabeth has dumb/half blind axie then I guess that some of that junk DNA must be associated with the twin dose of double recessive gen combi's. What do you think?

(Message edited by mikki on September 08, 2004)

 

[leighton]

Our leucistic and wildtype both exhibit that behaviour (zooms up for air, and zooms down headfirst for safety). I always assumed it was normal. Neither seem to be blind, as they respond to shading over the tank and will investigate a hand held above the water.

 

[cynthia]

I have had several that exhibited that behavior for years. As they got older the "crashes" got softer with the occasional "he has to be dead" crash.
It didn't seem to harm any of them.

They were white albino with red eyes and gold albino with red eyes.