Illness/Sickness: Is my axolotl sick or stressed??

[Rosarocks]

My axolotl Rosa has been acting a bit stressed for the past couple days. She's been doing a lot of frantic swimming. She goes back and forth along the front of the tank and wriggles into the glass. She also goes up for air occasionally. She does this less during the day time but she has been doing it more and more frequently. She has also gotten what appearers to be two cuts on her tail? Is this from her running into things or is it something more serious??

The tank has 0 ammonia and ~0.5 nitrite. The tank is cycling currently. I didn't really have the option for a fish less cycle as she was given for free to my boyfriend. We do water changes to keep the levels down but I was wondering whether this could be the reason for her stress or if it could be something else. Also the temperature is about 18-19 degrees celsius and there's minimal water flow in the tank. She's about 10 or 11 months old I think. We feed her earthworms.

Please help me out!

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[Cacique]

The water parameters could be the cause of the stress. I would do more water changes to keep the tank parameters at 0 until you see no increase in ammonia or nitrites, then just have to keep your nitrates under 40 after that. More frequent water changes won't hurt the cycling, in case you were wondering.

 

[Se]

I don't know if you have this where you live, but I've been using various "quick start" bacteria to cycle my tanks with my axolotls, and it has so far worked without causing them any stress. The first brand I used was Fritz Zyme Turbo Start and the second is Microbe-Life Special Blend.

Both are what my local(ly owned) pet store have used to cycle their fish and axolotl tanks and it seemed to work fine; the tank parameters went down in 1-2 days both times and the axolotls never showed any signs of stress.

Perhaps a product like one of those might help? There has been a fair bit of debate on these forums on how effective these quick bacteria cycles are, but at least I personally have had no ill effects with them (aside from they do smell rather unpleasant for a few hours). I can't promise the same for others, ofc, but it might be worth looking into.

 

[Se]

Ah someone on my post said quick start bacteria are not a good idea, so I apologize for that bad advice then. (I'm not sure if you can see it but since I can't edit the post I figured I should say that I retract my statement.) I'm surprised since I've seen others on the forum use it too and report good effects but as I said there is debate on it (mostly on if it does anything as far as I can see? I can't find anyone saying it's harmful, just if it does anything). Either way, my mistake.

Well, I'll try to make up my mistake with this hopefully helpful info: remember that for regular cycling, it goes slower in lower temperatures than it would with a higher temperature fish tank, so if you are used to cycling fish tanks at warmer temps, you need to be more patient for your axolotl's tank, especially since it's winter in the US and I assume your home and therefore tank temperatures are lower as well. There's also a lot of general tank cycling information on this thread down a few posts if it helps you.