Hi Bob2143,
Your mention of the plecos causing trauma to the skin provides vital clues. Trauma to the skin can cause tiny sores and ulceration naked to the visible eye. However these sores can quickly fester due to opportunistic infections from fungus etc.
It would be advisable to check your water parameters and temperature. It would also be prudent to continually monitor for other signs of stress and illness such as curled tail tip, inappetance, forward facing gills etc. It is also important that you offer nutritious food varieties to ensure your axie gets all the nutrients it needs for good health and immunity. (Earthworms, bloodworms, blackworms etc.)
My recommendation is for you to fridge your axolotl during this period.
Fridging your axie will destress it, boost its immune system and render harmful pathogens (both bacterial and fungal) less viable.
- Set your fridge to about 5 degree celsius.
- Put your axie in a container large enough to allow it to stretch its limbs and tail comfortably.
- Fill with fresh dechlorinated water enough to submerge it but not allowing it to float.
- Cover with a lid. You can use a perforated lid or netting to prevent it jumping out.
- Use a tea towel to cover it to keep the environment dark.
- Perform 100% water changes daily with clean dechlorinated water.
- You can pre prepare bottles of water in the fridge.
- Continue to offer a variety of nutritious food daily. Try live wriggly food like blackworms, bloodworms, earthworms. You can also try the usual pellet, offer treats of shrimp and fish etc. Otherwise you can also blend everything in a food processor and then roll the resultant mash into a pea sized ball to try offer your axie. Remove uneaten food within 20 min.
I would try
fridging your axolotl for 2 weeks and continually monitor for improvement. Please update on the progress every couple of days. Watch how it progresses. If the conidtion improves, you can just continue the fridging treatment alone. Otherwise after 2 weeks you may consider the tea baths or salt baths to treat an infection.
This is a link of salt baths.
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/salt.shtml
A tea bath is gentler and has an astringent effect that would treat fungal (and even some bacteria) infection.
This is an extract i found from this link.
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/illness2.shtml
"I mainly use teabaths for minor skin problems. It may also be used with fungal problems but on that account I prefer salt baths. Tea has a slightly antifungal and antibacterial effect (resulting from tannins) and additionally it closes the pores in the skin a little bit (mainly resulting from tannin and caffeine). The skin tightens and gets some kind of protective layer, making it harder for fungi and bacteria to intrude the body. On the other hand it makes it harder for salt or medicine to reach pathogens which are already inside the body - that is the reason I do not use it on fungal infections, although a tea bath is sometimes recommended as a cure for fungal infections by some people.
The medication is as follows: I take one bag of black tea without any additional aroma (it is important to use black tea because this kind of tea is fermented and so it has tannins) for every 10 litres of water (preferably used in a quarantine tank). This tea gets dashed with boiling water in a seperate bowl - I leave it there for at least 10 to 15 minutes so the tannins are resolved into the water. The tea has to cool down and is finally added to the quarantine water. After a week I make a bigger change of water (60% at least), the rest of the tea is removed over time by normal water changes. If you have to make more regular water changes (f.i. in a small bowl or tank) the tea concentration can be refilled. As far as I know there are no negative effects even for long term treatment. A similar effect (although not as strong) may have the addition of dried oak or beech leafs now and then as a precaution."
Cheers