Floating Axie

[Sergeant Boppo]

I walked in on my Axie, little Boppo, doing an unusual thing today; he was floating on the surface of the water in his tank. He seemed to be having trouble staying down, and he was constantly swimming towards the bottom only to float back up soon afterwards. I say "was" because this affliction seems to be over for the moment. However, I remember reading about a disease somewhere that has this effect on Axies; are there any other symptoms to this disease, and does it seem to stop having an effect for short periods of time? Also, he burped/threw up up a few bubbles before he began sinking again; did he just have a bad case of indigestion or gas? I isolated him, and I am waiting on the word to fridge him.

 

[Saspotato]

Hmm if it was only a short while it may not be anything to worry about. My axolotl does that on occasion and eventually he will let out a big bubble of air and sink back down. I guess my advice would be to keep an eye on him for other symptoms like not eating, etc.

 

[Casaloxl]

2 of my axies do that quite frequently, they look like minature crocodiles when they do it... just watch the behaviour over the next few days, i find if they move fast whilst at the top, there maybe something to look for, if they are just peacefull, it may just be something they fancy doing,
if anything changes post here and someone will give advice on whats the best thing to do..
( my axies burp quite often...)

 

[Sergeant Boppo]

Well, I think I know what the problem was... I kept Boppo in his small isolation tank for about a day, and when I checked back, I found a relatively large rock in the otherwise bare tank with him. My guess is, he swallowed a piece of gravel from before I was informed it is bad for axies and switched it out for sand. I made the change a little less than a month ago, so I'm guessing it took him so long to pass the gravel because it was so large... compared to my axie, an adolescent about 18 inches long, the rock was 3 inches long and 1 around. Now I have a completely new set of worries; if it took him so long to pass this rock, is/was there something wrong with him? Could it have caused him internal injuries?

 

[kapo]

You're very lucky he did pass that rock! It probably did block him up somewhat. At worst he could have developed a prolapse leading to eventual death.

One of ours died from a prolapse due to pebble/gravel ingestion (this was over 18months after they'd been on that type of substrate), though the glass pebbles that had come out of our dying axie were just under an inch wid (2.5cm).

Hopefully that is the only large piece that blocked him. If there was any small er gravel in the tank you may notice bits appearing over the next several months. We have a substantial amount of gravel/pebbles in our potplants from the 5 adults that had previously been on gravel most of their lives (with previous owners).