Healthy Axy suddenly passed away

[emma]

I woke up this morning to find my axy, Quinn who I've had since about August, floating in his tank. I gave his tail a nudge and sure enough, dead. He's been happy and healthy for months now and his tank gets regularly cleaned out and refilled with cycled water (haven't encountered a water problem since cycling)
Is it possible that all the storms we've had recently in NSW could be linked to his death? We had a really bad wind storm here last night but nothing that could've hurt him inside the house, in his tank.
He was my first ever Axy and I'm not sure when I'll be ready to get another.

 

[sharn]

sorry to hear about your loss, its always hard losing a pet. bacterial is my guess if he seemed healthy. how old was he? the only other thing i can think of is maybe your water supply got contaminated by chemicals from winds, ones that dont effect humans....

(Message edited by sharn on December 03, 2005)

 

[john]

Or maybe not enough to effect humans.. Amphibians tend to be more sensitive to things, and axies are no exeption..

~JOhn

 

[emma]

I greatly doubt it was water contamination, the window near his tank is never open and the main walk way through the room doesn't go near his tank. He wasn't that young, maybe a year old (about 25cms from nose to tail) He is now buried in my mother's yard under an plant.

 

[jennifer]

Emma, what do you mean by "cycled water"? In a cycled tank, it's never needed to completely empty/refill the tank. Of course I don't know why your axie died, but "water issues" are a possibility I think. Hard to say. At any rate, I'm very sorry!

 

[emma]

Jennifer, what I meant by cycled water was water that I added to his tank when it was getting a little low, I've got a tank that's constantly cycling (pH about 7.2 and all other aspects are normal) Sometimes I would do about a 35% water change, sometimes more just to make sure that nothing nasty was lurking in his water. He suffered fungus about two months ago and had a complete water change then but he was happy and seemed healthy up until the end. Anyway, too late now I guess

 

[jojo]

Hey Emma,
i also live in sydney and the weather has been very up and down. What about temperature?
What temperature does your tank normally sit at?
I came home one day to find the tank at 30 degrees. My boys were fine, just abit stressed.
It has caused huge issues with past axies though.
Could temperature have caused problems?

 

[jojo]

Oh and im very sorry to hear about your little buddy. It may be too late him him, but not too late for coming axies that you might get.
And again, m VERY sorry for ur loss

jojo

 

[deput]

i am a new axi owner and was just wondering if and how long they can stay out of water ? when u say put them in the fridge , how much water do u put with them ?

 

[sharn]

enough to cover them. they cant live for very long out of water but i have heard of one living for about three hours- it jumped out of the tank and was found hiding, very dry, in a over turned rubbish bin. they can breath through their skin to a certain extent

 

[joan]

When the skin is dry, it ceases to function as a respiratory organ. They do have lungs, but it is important that they stay in the water. Fish can breath out of water for a certain extent too, but like axolotls, they're aquatic and cannot survive out of water.

 

[deput]

Cool , thankyou for the imformation.I live in Queensland and i have had trouble keeping him cool, i have just got the temp down to 20 deg and he seems alot happier now. I am glad i found this site because if i had of listened to the petshop he wouldnt have lasted long at all.