Fungus eating away the gills? Help!!!

My guess would be that bad water quality (ammonia, nitrites, possibly chlorimenes or some other mystery thing in the water) is killing the gills. Dead gill tissue is likely what you are seeing at the tips since I wont have any blood in it to make it red like normal gills would. Fungus grows really quickly so it typically is really big. I would think the tea baths would be very similar to the salt baths but I don't have any experience with them.

Can you post a picture of the things you are putting in the water to make it better? That might be the cause of the disappearing gills. Nothing should be put in the tank water except more declorinated water. Unfortunately there is no substitute that I know of that replaces a declorinator. Nor is there anything able to decrease the ammonia axolotls secrete to make their water toxic and that can only be fixed with a water change.
 
The link below has a guide on how to do a tea bath.

Caudata Culture Articles - Illness Part 2

As Charlotl explained above, I too suspect there is something not quite right with the water parameters causing them irritation and causing the gill damage. The white tips you are seeing is likely dead tissue. What is the stuff you were putting in the water? Run the tests on the water when your liquid test kit arrives.

It would help if you could be more specific about what you are adding to their water. It will help us be able to narrow down what might be causing your axolotls to lose their gills.
 
The things we put in the water are
sera aquatan:
sera GmbH - sera aquatan - New freshness within your aquarium

and sera bionitrivec:
https://www.sera.de/en/products/in_...erstellen-5598/product/sera-bio-nitrivec.html

Also we do water changes regularly :/
Atm we have 3 of them still in separate buckets and I do not know what to do with them anymore. We did these salt baths twice I do not know if giving them a tea bath now will be a good idea or not. Maybe too much shock at once.The gills have white ends and also some of them are coming off and they looked like they had this white fungus like stuff on them but maybe I am wrong. Probably we will have to put them back to the aquarium soon. Try to make another water change, cleaning, add these water cleaning products and hope for the best. Also try to get the kit
But I am still very worried about the one who almost has no gills, is it possible that they will disapper all of them?? Can he live like that?
 
Hi, I've been reading the posts in this thread and I'm sorry your axolotl's are not doing well.

I have a few questions. You mentioned at the beginning that you had an aquarium running for 5 years and a few months ago you switched to a larger tank. I'm assuming your first tank was cycled after all that time (no ammonia or nitrites, nitrates less than 40 ppm) - did you have some sort of filter running on your older tank and if so, did you switch your filter media over to the new, larger tank when you started it up to help cycle it?

It is important, as has already been mentioned by people responding to your posts, that you get a reliable liquid testing kit so you can properly determine what your levels of ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and pH are at in the new tank. It may not have properly cycled and the pH might be fluctuating.

I see you are also using a liquid bacterial supplement that is usually used to help cycle a tank - have you always used this? Did you use it in your previous tank? I have read in some fish forums that some types of bacterial supplements can disrupt the natural cycling process. The concerns are that they may contain the bacteria that converts ammonia into nitrite and the bacteria that converts nitrite into nitrate, but it can be a short-lived, non self-sustaining form of that bacteria that can die off. It can also sometimes out-compete the natural beneficial bacteria that is trying to grow in your tank.

It's good you are doing regular partial water changes with dechlorinated water just in case your tank is not cycled. When my tank was cycling i was doing daily partial water changes as ammonia and nitrites can build up very quickly. I was using a liquid testing kit to monitor the levels daily as well.

I hope that you and the people here who are very knowledgeable about axolotls can figure out what's going on and help your axolotls recover soon.
 
The white tips you are seeing are more likely dead gill tissue that has lost all blood supply. The photos show no fungus present and certainly not enough to continue salt baths. A black tea bath is mild and soothing for the skin and won't harm your axolotls. The tea also has some mild antibacterial and antifungal properties as well. I feel the gill loss is due to water quality rather than fungus eating the gills away. It would be best to keep them in the buckets for now until you can get the liquid test kit and ensure that your aquirium is safe for them to be in. Axolotls have amazing healing abilities so don't give up on them just yet.

What do you mean by water cleaning products? How often are your regular water changes? The dechlorinator you are using doesn't say it is effective against chloramine. Does your local water supply contain chloramine?
 
Yes, we put the same filter system in the new tank so nothing changed there but yes I guess since the new tank is pretty big- 315L so it takes more time to get the water cycled.
In the old tank we did not use a lot of the Sera Aquatan I dont know if this could really have made the difference. The good news is that I went to see the tank with 2 golden axolotls in it still and it seemed better. They had no signs of this illness on the gills and they were eating, also I saw some sperm on the tank, so maybe we even get some baby eggs soon :)
The other 3 who we have separated did not want to eat yesterday :( so still worried about them.
If I order this kit will this have enough parameters to test or should there be more tests in there to do?
JBL Test Combi-Set

Also I wanted to ask for some advice. We have a problem because we need to move the axolotls soon from my grandmothers place because the big tank is on the second floor where there is no heating and the temp will get too cold soon for them, because nobody is living there. We have taken our old 180L tank to the new house and my idea was to put it to work and keep the axolotls in there until we get so far that we can bring the bigger tank to the house. The problem is that we are renovating the main living room where the big tank is suppose to go. But this means new water and new cycles in the old tanks and then again once we get the big tank here. But I think this is our only way? Does anybody have any ideas how to do it better? Especially when 3 of the axolotls seem stressed and 2 of them not. To put them back together into one tank?
 
The kit doesn't appear to test for ammonia so you will either need to find a different one or get a separate ammonia test kit as well as this kit. I'm not sure from your post whether you are familiar with the cycling process we are referring to. Just in case, here is a link Scales Tails Wings and Things, What is Aquarium Cycling? How to Cycle your Tank

Have you got thermometers in the tanks? How cold would you expect the water temperature would get?
 
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