Illness/Sickness: Gill Reduction in New Tank

[JoeDailey]

I'm currently getting my new 135G tank cycled.

New tank, been ~full for about two weeks. I built it myself and used 100% silicone that cured for ~1.5 weeks (overkill). The tank has serious air being pumped through 5 stones. As of now I have no filter. (Edge won't work with the frame, thinking about a cannister.) Very little waterflow, considering a small pump.

Few different plants rooted in CaribSea Eco-Complete, which I've heard can initially raise pH. I'm aware substrate can cause impactions in my axie's tummies, but I've never had an issue with it as long as I'm feeding them live minnows or goldfish and not bloodworms or earthworms. I suspect it's because they are never eating off of the ground.
Also two new pieces of driftwood from the aquarium shop, also where I got the plants.

Levels:

• 2/8/17 - pH:7.8, NH3:0.25ppm, NO2:0ppm, NO3:0ppm
• 2/12/17 - pH:7.6, NH3:0.25ppm, NO2:0ppm, NO3:0ppm
• 2/13/17 - pH:7.8, NH3:~0ppm, NO2:~0ppm, NO3:~0ppm

Not many days of record but seems pretty good to me, no? Maybe there's more to test in apartment city water? The water is fairly hard, residue on all my glassware.

The Patient on a Better Day...

Story is, I put the axies the tank after a week+ of letting the water dechlorinate. But I had to get out of town for the weekend. In a rush, without live food, I tossed a couple bloodworm cubes in and left the apartment. Sunday evening I got back in and noticed my poor girl's gills were diminished. But not the other (male).

When transporting (just her) I felt her slimecoat was kinda sticky.

I got them both in the fridge for about a week taking salt baths twice a day. Film would drop off of them while bathing. They were stressed by all this but were showing great progress in recovering. I noticed (stem cells?) starting to grow back on the tips of her gills. (I can't seem to find the pictures, but I'll add if I do)

Anyways I figured it was time to let them give it another go in the new tank.
After 24hrs her gills have lost almost all of the (stem cells?) white tips I mentioned earlier. Not as bad as the initial picture but still.

I imagine the solution is to continue 20% water changes daily and I putting her back in the fridge w/ regular salt baths, even though she doesn't seem to like it.


I'm hoping someone has some advice or something I'm missing here so I can get to correcting it. Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

 

[Skudo09]

Goldfish and minnows are not really the greatest choice for a staple diet. Earthworms are far more nutritious and you can still hand feed them above the substrate.

Stop the salt baths. This treatment is very irritating to the skin and is for treatment of fungal infections. They don't need to be in the fridge but somewhere cool. Keep them in a tub of fresh, dechlorinated water and change 100% of the water daily.

What test kit are you using? Strips or liquid? Are you using a dechlorinator?

 

[emdalliance]

I never let my axolotls feed off the ground, you cannot guarantee to clean up properly. If you have fine sand impaction is pretty rare indeed. Better still if you have a bare bottom tank.

I wouldn't be feeding my axolotls goldfish or minnows. I doubt they can digest them very well at all.

Use tweezers or your fingers and feed earthworms. Earthworms are nutritionally the best, shouldn't be feeding adults bloodworms, there's nothing in them nutritionally for adults. You can also feed raw prawns, beef heart, etc etc. Mine love raw prawns it's by far their favourite, it's nice to have a back up when they turn their noses up at earthworms.

Leaving cubes of bloodworms in your tank will seriously mess up your water quality because of the waste. I never ever do anything but hand feed.

If her slime coat is sticky and feels like it's coming off then it's definitely a water quality issue.

Why did you do salt baths can I please ask? It's very stressful for axolotls and should only only be for treating fungus. It will damage their gill filaments. Please please STOP doing salt baths, you're harming your axolotl and she doesn't have fungus so I don't know why you've been doing them. Could you please show us your source where it says to do salt baths for anything other than fungus? It's worrying.

You don't need to put her in the fridge either. Do 100% water changes with cold water every day and use the correct amount of dechlorinator.

Are you using the API testing kit?

I'm just reiterating what's been said above.


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