Daughter's dead Axolotl - advice

J

jenny

Guest
My daughter bought her first Axolotl just over a month ago, and was devestated to find it dead at the bottom of its tank this morning. She has been very fastidious as far as caring for her pet, and the only thing I feel may have caused its death is overfeeding. Is this possible? For the past couple of weeks my daughter has been feeding her Axolotl two and even three times a day - basically any time it seemed to want it. She hand fed it strips of beef and heart (and once or twice chicken). The day before the Axolotl died it seemed to have the poops - or perhaps it was vomit because the pieces of matter in the tank looked quite large to me. Any idea of the possible cause of death would be greatly appreciated as my daughter would like to buy a new Axolotl when she's over this loss.
 
Once a day feeding if young, is enough. Chicken is not recommended. Death could be from anything though really. Water quality is important. Temperature is important. It could have been bacterial. Read www.axolotl.org as it has all the basic info you need to know.
 
The large piece of stuff you found was probably bolus, basically vomit from overfeeding. I imagine if she was feeding it three times a day, it was throwing up a lot of bolus. If this was left in the water, it could have caused water to foul very quickly.
 
I have seen only bad things come from the feeding of mammal meat, and also chicken. It sounds like it was fed a little too often, every other day is adequate. As joan said, the excess food in the tank could have ruined water conditions, cased an ammonia spike or something. The chicken could have had salmonella...
and as anne-marie said temperature also has a great effect on the axolotl.

What temperature had it been kept at?

Did it seem to have any other problems besides vomitting, a fungus maybe?

im very sorry to hear about the loss of your pet, hopefully we can help. Before you get your new axolotl check out the link anne-marie posted, its loaded with great info!
 
I'm sorry to hear about your axolotl. It's always sad when a pet dies.
 
In addition to what others have said, overfeeding causes a secondary problem, which is that the water quality goes bad quickly. Was she doing frequent partial water changes? For aquatic animals, cleaning is more important than feeding.
 
Thank you everyone for your responses. My daughter will be thrilled to know there is so much help available here.
I have no idea about the water's temp etc as the pet shop owner didn't tell us we needed a thermometer or water testing kit. I see by a lot of the posts on this board these items are important and will make sure we have these when we buy another Axolotl.
One other thing: I've read a number of posts on this site about small stones being swallowed by Axolotls, which makes me wonder if the stones in my daughter's tank may have been a problem. Aside from being small, they are blue and whenever my daughter would clean the tank and rinse them, the dye came out. I thought this was odd the first time she washed them, but since they were bought from the pet shop, assumed they must be safe.
 
Aquarium stones are not recommended due to their size. Axolotls, particularly if fed sinking food, can scoop up the gravel in their mouths and this may potentially cause a blockage. It is normal to wash aquarium gravel, dyed or natural, several times before putting in the tank. Once you've done so , you'll know why - stuff that washes out you don't want to put in with live things.

Another thing - Does your daughter know about cycling a tank first? Chances are, if she bought the axy from a pet store, they might not have told her.

Out of interest, are you in Australia or elsewhere?
 
A tank needs to be cycled before an axolotl can live happily in it. The cycle refers to establishing a chain of good bacteria, which happens naturally, and which breaks down the waste put out by the axolotl.

In a nutshell, a tank should be up and running for around a month before you get your axie, to allow for this good bacteria to develop. Check out
www.axolotl.org/requirements.htm
 
Thanks everyone for your help. Elissa has read all your posts with interest and will take all advice onboard for when she gets a new Axolotl. By the way we live north of Brisbane, Qld.
 
I was just going to say that maybe you should just feed it worms, and pellets and stuff, cause some meats are bad if they are too fatty or off. Also change the water regulary and if it's an adult axolotl then I would only feed it every couple of days. Also don't use pebbles that are small enough for it to swallow cause I realised mine was clogged up with peddles so it was good I got them out of there in time. Even after I took the pebbles out he was pooping pebbles for weeks!
 
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