EMERGENCY - Help!!! Floating Larvae!! ALL Have VISIBLE Bubbles In Their Belly's!

[iSuzie]

Help... all of my baby's have large bubbles in their belly's they are floating on top of the water and then swimming around crazy and as soon as they stop they float to one side then slowly turn upside down and i can clearly see a massive bubble in their belly's... completely visible.. they are freaking out and ALL have the exact same problem... What is going on? ... HELP please!!!!!! What do i do???????????

 

[iSuzie]

I was looking at them about an hour ago... and they were fine.. now i go past them and notice all the movement... someone please help.. i don't want to lose them :'(

 

[xxianxx]

Larvae get air bubbles in their stomach from eating , the fact all of yours are doing it probally means something else, unfortunately i dont know what that would be, i would do an immediate water change and wait for someone else who can advise you. Keep some of the present water and after youve cleaned the tank check its temperature and ammonia levels etc to see if you can find anything. If you have done a change in the last couple of hours check your tap water.

 

[xxianxx]

You also said youd just fed them, what was it? do you usually feed them this type of food? have you done anything different in the last couple of hours? was it your usual food but a new pack?

 

[taylorw]

I've never raised larvae, so i don't know what to tell you i saw your post on the facebook group. Have you checked your water? I agree with Ian about doing an immediate water change. Was something wrong with what you fed them?

 

[Aimzs Lotties]

Try adding some salt to the water. Not much, no more than a teaspoon per litre.. It can have a healing/soothing effect. Also maybe try to cool the water down a bit. Only temporary solutions to keep their stress down till you determine what went wrong.. Good luck!!!

 

[xxianxx]

Just checked caudata.culture, it appears to be gas bubble disease which is where the water is supersaturated with oxygen, the reccomended treatment is very shallow water with lots of plants. Did your tap water come through very gassey or under a stronger than usual pressure? or do you use well water ? apparently these are potential causes. Keep us posted.

 

[xxianxx]

If your water is very gassey you can remove some of the gas by agitating it ie shaking it(like a bottle of pop), just checked with my dad he is a chemical engineer, phd smart guy lol, he has told me a chemical to put in but i need to google it for its safe use with amphibians

sorry, its a no for the chemical

 

[Morrison]

My baby axies we're floating sometimes as well. They end up floating on their sides and you can see air bubbles in their stomachs, but a day later they're back to normal. They poop or burp it out. None of them have died because of the floating. They swallowed some air while eating.

 

[Kaysie]

Larvae often get gas bubbles in their belly from not eating enough. How often are you feeding them and what type of food are you feeding?

Gas bubble disease is fairly rare, and it involves gas bubbles beneath the skin, not in the belly. Unless you have an aeration system running that's super-saturating the water with air (such as with a venturi nozzle), you're probably not going to get gas bubble disease.

 

[iSuzie]

Ok .. so most of them are dead... I done a water change and made it lower as soon as i saw it happen last night, the water temp was 19 and nothing wrong with the water, it had been change 5 hours prior and i had feed them 30 mins before i changed their water. I feed them BBS as usual nothing different, the water is the same as it is every day and came from my bucket that i keep next to them the night before already treated. The BBS was the same as my other containers of baby's got {different age's} and so was the water. Nothing has happened to them. There are 3 golden albino's in separate small tub's, 30 one week old larvae and then the container of my 70 3 day old larvae and they were they one that this happened to. There container is a flat 10 litre container big enough for them all. They had a air stone on very low only one bubble per second, done with a "G" clamp on the tubing line. I took that out as soon as i saw the air bubbles but made no difference. The dead baby's have tiny little hooked tails and their body's seem curled backwards. There are still some alive one's that are swimming crazy then sinking and swimming again, also some just floating and about 6 that are not doing anything but I'm not sure if they are dead... I cant understand this, there nothing i done different and all the rest of the baby's are fine... the tap water is the same as usual and the water i used for the change had been sitting in a clean bucket for 24-36 hours covered by a big plastic lid from another type of container... I'm devastated :'(

Does anyone know what happened? or what I should do with the rest that are still flipping around? should I cull them? as I don't think they will survive and they look in horrible pain.. :'(

 

[iSuzie]

And to answer the how often do i feed them question, they are 3 days old, so far i have only feed them 5 times, at the 24 hour mark on Wednesday i feed them it was the afternoon, then the next morning Thursday then in the afternoon, Friday once in the morning then once in the afternoon... then about 4 hours after that it happened..
Now i haven't feed them because I don't think they can eat or it would be good for them..
Can someone please tell me if i should feed them or if i should cull them because of their pain? :'(

 

[und34d]

damn suzi im really sorry to hear this.....I looked up floating larvae because a couple of mine are doing it too i just did a water change and put them into larger tubs....i cant see any bubbles in their bellys but im keeping a close eye on them.....If it gets any worse I'm thinking I'll get rid of as much of the water as possible and put them back in the main tank with the other larvae....I also have a gentle filter running in the main tank and to ease the water flow i wrapped the filter foam from another filter around the showering thing.....man these little guys are so delicate its hard rest easy with the setup i have for them :/
Good luck with the rest of your babies

 

[iSuzie]

Good luck with yours too... most of mine are ok, even though i thought they were dead, a lot were alive just unresponsive, as soon as i feed them again they got better slowly, they still float and spin out sometimes but they are a lot better.. but not quiet ok yet. When they are startled they still swim crazy instead of straight... and then float for a few mins then slowly go back down.. BUT.. they have improved a lot!

 

[swimupstream]

Hooray!! So happy to hear that... it must have been awful for you, dealing with that on your own...

Hope they keep improving :happy:

 

[iSuzie]

Thanks and yea it was horrible.. felt so helpless.. =[

 

[und34d]

yay thats good news

 

[iSuzie]

An update.. They are doing great! Hardly any floating ones!
Now when I do water changes they have started to swim straight again and not flip around crazy as much! I'm pretty sure they are getting better and i'm amazed that they haven't all died, they looked sooo horrible and in such bad distress when it happened i was convinced they were all going to die.
So glad they are ok!

 

[nina89]

Thats great that they are all okay now, something no one seem to mention is BBS eggs. were you being careful when collecting the BBS not to take any of the eggs, they are quite life threatening to an axolotl larvae(they are like gravel to an adult axolotl) as they get swallowed and cause air bubbles in the tummy they can also block up your axolotl. It sounds like that or not enough food was the cause. When I find side, tail and head floaters I remove them into a small tub no more than 10cm each way and only a centimeter deep or so(so they can reach the BBS) and then I fill it with plenty of food, by the morning they are all back to normal as their bellies are full of BBS there is no room for air bubbles so they should come straight out. If it happens again I would suggest you try this method.
Good luck

 

[e23ho]

Thats great that they are all okay now, something no one seem to mention is BBS eggs. were you being careful when collecting the BBS not to take any of the eggs, they are quite life threatening to an axolotl larvae(they are like gravel to an adult axolotl) as they get swallowed and cause air bubbles in the tummy they can also block up your axolotl. It sounds like that or not enough food was the cause. When I find side, tail and head floaters I remove them into a small tub no more than 10cm each way and only a centimeter deep or so(so they can reach the BBS) and then I fill it with plenty of food, by the morning they are all back to normal as their bellies are full of BBS there is no room for air bubbles so they should come straight out. If it happens again I would suggest you try this method.
Good luck

Suzie this had happened to my larvae too! Unfortunately many have been lost to a crash in food supply and nowhere to get a new one (so they starved for 6ish days).... still have a handful of really tiny ones that I'm trying really hard to ensure they eat... But about the BBS eggs - thanks for that tip! I knew the shells and eggs were bad for them but didn't realize (now it makes sense though) that it was like an impaction for adults! Problem is, I find it nearly impossible to separate them, even if I leave it for an hour! Does anyone have any tips so I can try to salvage my last 30 ?