He’s floating

[Rosie1230]

My axolotl isn’t moving much and he’s floating. He was fine yesterday. If not a little sluggish. He won’t eat anything. I’ve tried blood worms and krill. They’re his favorite. He literally won’t eat anything else.

 

[KumquatSquats]

i see you are in arizona, is it possible that the tank got too hot? over 70f you can see signs of heat stress and over 75f can become an emergency fast

 

[Rosie1230]

The temp is at 65°. I have fans on him and if it gets too hot I can bring him downstairs. I don’t think it’s heat.

 

[KumquatSquats]

if hes still little (based on bloodworms and krill as foods) he could have swallowed too much air and not know how to burp it up, does he seem to have trouble swimming down or is he floating by choice? if they seem stuck floating move them to an isolation tub where the water can be low enough to just cover them, this should help them calm down and burp out the air.

if hes over 4 inches long my suggestion is to try other foods, those foods are ok for babies but dont have the nutrition bigger axolotls need. Pellets can be hard to get your 'lotl to switch to at first but are pretty easy overall, earthworms are the best food for them but can be hard to keep in stock so sometimes i freeze them for later.

 

[Rosie1230]

Uh is this normal? He’s turning black. I’ll move him to isolation. But he’s really still.

 

[Rosie1230]

I’m getting scared. He’s in the fridge while I run and get him earthworms. I think he’s really sick

 

[Hayleyy]

Oh wow, I haven't seen anything like that before. Do you have pic of him before he started having issues?

 

[KumquatSquats]

that looks like internal bleeding or organ problems to me
beyond my scope of knowledge unfortunately

 

[Locke]

Is there substrate at the bottom? Small gravel? Looks like impaction to me. Fridge them, give them stress coat, and prey.

 

[WasabiThumbs]

I'm definitely underqualified but I have heard in some places that axolotls don't take kindly to stress coat. Take this with a grain of salt.

 

[Locke]

I'm definitely underqualified but I have heard in some places that axolotls don't take kindly to stress coat. Take this with a grain of salt.

Really? Have you had any negative effects? I add stress coat to my water treatment tank, but I don't add it directly to the tank. I had hoped it would improve their slime coat.

 

[Hayleyy]

How is this one going? I would probably take it to the vet if you can, I really don't know what can cause the colouration issue! It would be helpful to know the tank parameters as well in case that is contributing.

 

[GemCityAxolotls]

I’m getting scared. He’s in the fridge while I run and get him earthworms. I think he’s really sick

Do you have any “before” pics? And is the change in color spreading? Looks like he could possibly be morphing...

 

[Kingfisher]

I'm not 100% sure but it also looks like his gills are positioned forward, usually meaning he maybe under stress of some sort.

 

[Kingfisher]

What are your water parameters? Is your tank fully cycled?

 

[honeydew]

Is it possible that this is a tiger salamander larvae thats morphing? I’ve never seen this coloration before in an axolotl.

EDIT: Wow sorry, just realized how old this post is! I’d like to know if this was the case though..

 

[Kitan]

To answer the unanswered question (because I too was curious)

https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?p=493864#post493864

Seem highly likely that Sebastian was not, in fact, an Axolotl XD XD He was obviously stressed from him gills positioning, but I expect what was happening is he was morphing. Turns out Sebastian came from a bait shop and dont expect the shop to have a lot of knowledge on the bait aside from it's relation as effective bait

I want to know how this turned out though!! Does OP now have a salamander?

 

[Autistic Catholic]

I know this post is very old, but I'm still curious as to whether the final verdict on what species Sebastian belonged to was ultimately a tiger salamander.