GeorgeAquatics
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- Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
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I need help. I sold some white worms (Enchytraeus spp. Caudata Culture Articles - Food Items for Captive Caudates ) to a friend of mine a few months ago, who happened to be raising her first batch of offspring of an axolotl she'd gotten from me.
Right from the beginning, there were problems, with some refusing to eat at all, and strange greenish looking bellies. These died soon, (before ever having eaten the worms), one of which apparently died the first day after hatching, and a few others simply refused to eat, and died within a few days. This I assumed was some defect, when I looked online and saw that people often report a few from each batch not eating and wasting away.
The others were fed on baby brine shrimp and then a combination of baby brine shrimp and live adult brine shrimp, along with chopped white worms a few times a week, and the growth has been very slow.
At almost five months old, they still haven't reached past 1", and haven't developed any back legs yet. We were trying to narrow down what the problem might be, and I suggested that the issue might be that they weren't able to eat the white worms for some reason, and suggested chopped bloodworms instead, but she said they were eating entire white worms, as well as adult brine shrimp, but then, today she saw an axolotl pooping *live worms*.
They look a lot like the Enchtraeus species, but is it possible for an axolotl to eat a worm, and for it to come out totally undigested? Or is this some sort of parasitic nematode that just happens to resemble the white worms?
Is it possible that some sort of eggs or larvae of a parasite found their way into the compost bin, maybe hitchhiking on some scraps of fruit or veggie, and started breeding in the dirt that she adds to it, from her worm bin? If so, could that have let to the first ones dying, after the worms got in with the baby brine shrimp, which she got from the brine shrimp culture bin? Or that the earthworms in the bin were carrying some sort of parasite (although they were apparently bred in captivity)?
How could we rule out some sort of physiological problem, where they are eating but not digesting their food?
Has anyone ever seen this before, where they died, mysteriously, refused to eat, and had green stomachs? We've been looking into axolotl anatomy, and the greenish part seems to be in the general area of the spleen.
I can't figure out how to link the video, but here is a photos of the worms on a penny. These are presumably juvenile white worms, which have passed through still living and undigested
Also, has anyone ever noticed that axolotls which have albino genes tend to grow a lot faster than other axolotls? Could this have to do with them having been produced by hybridizing with tiger salamanders, originally?
Before we discovered that they were passing live worms, my theory was that they were just so slow to grow because this line are relatively smaller (9-10" adults versus 12-14" adults) and relatively slower to grow, like mine had been.
This is the first time that their line (with albino relatives) has crossed with my line (no albino relatives), so in that case, could the hybrid genes have mixed badly with the pure A. mexicanum genes, causing congenital defects?
--- Source: Axolotls - Genetics - Color Phases Mutants and Phenotypes - Axolotl
If this is a parasitic issue, what would you recommend to rid them of the parasites? Panacur (fenbendazole)? Any suspects on which they would be, if they did turn out to be parasites, based on the photos? If it's some other parasite inside of them, causing their insides to be damaged, any ideas on what that might be?
They look smaller than white worms should be, to me. Here they are on a penny, for size comparison, although these may just be juveniles.
One thing that does strike me though, is that the male who fathered this clutch was from my own first batch, and they were very hard to raise, for me. I struggled immensely getting them past 1 inch, and was only able to do it by chopping bloodworms into tiny, tiny pieces (like 1 mm) and mixing it up with the baby brine shrimp and microworms (Panagrellus redivivus).
For some reason, baby brine and microworms just didn't do it, even though I was feeding them 5+ times a day, and they had nice orange bellies. They refused to grow, and were starving to death, one by one, no matter how often I fed them.
It seems too strange of a coincidence that these ones would also be stuck at the same size, and be gradually dying, the way mine were before that. They must have been close to this age too, when I finally tried the finely chopped bloodworm paste thing.
These new guys are apparently refusing anything except brine shrimp at this point (and they are also apparently eating white worms, which I am now wondering if they could have possibly injured the guts, by wiggling around too much inside).
Thank you, everyone. Any help would be appreciated.
***UPDATE*** Now she has just seen a live brine shrimp exit from the anus of one who is either dead or close to death. What is going on here?!
Right from the beginning, there were problems, with some refusing to eat at all, and strange greenish looking bellies. These died soon, (before ever having eaten the worms), one of which apparently died the first day after hatching, and a few others simply refused to eat, and died within a few days. This I assumed was some defect, when I looked online and saw that people often report a few from each batch not eating and wasting away.
The others were fed on baby brine shrimp and then a combination of baby brine shrimp and live adult brine shrimp, along with chopped white worms a few times a week, and the growth has been very slow.
At almost five months old, they still haven't reached past 1", and haven't developed any back legs yet. We were trying to narrow down what the problem might be, and I suggested that the issue might be that they weren't able to eat the white worms for some reason, and suggested chopped bloodworms instead, but she said they were eating entire white worms, as well as adult brine shrimp, but then, today she saw an axolotl pooping *live worms*.
They look a lot like the Enchtraeus species, but is it possible for an axolotl to eat a worm, and for it to come out totally undigested? Or is this some sort of parasitic nematode that just happens to resemble the white worms?
Is it possible that some sort of eggs or larvae of a parasite found their way into the compost bin, maybe hitchhiking on some scraps of fruit or veggie, and started breeding in the dirt that she adds to it, from her worm bin? If so, could that have let to the first ones dying, after the worms got in with the baby brine shrimp, which she got from the brine shrimp culture bin? Or that the earthworms in the bin were carrying some sort of parasite (although they were apparently bred in captivity)?
How could we rule out some sort of physiological problem, where they are eating but not digesting their food?
Has anyone ever seen this before, where they died, mysteriously, refused to eat, and had green stomachs? We've been looking into axolotl anatomy, and the greenish part seems to be in the general area of the spleen.
I can't figure out how to link the video, but here is a photos of the worms on a penny. These are presumably juvenile white worms, which have passed through still living and undigested
Also, has anyone ever noticed that axolotls which have albino genes tend to grow a lot faster than other axolotls? Could this have to do with them having been produced by hybridizing with tiger salamanders, originally?
Before we discovered that they were passing live worms, my theory was that they were just so slow to grow because this line are relatively smaller (9-10" adults versus 12-14" adults) and relatively slower to grow, like mine had been.
This is the first time that their line (with albino relatives) has crossed with my line (no albino relatives), so in that case, could the hybrid genes have mixed badly with the pure A. mexicanum genes, causing congenital defects?
--- Source: Axolotls - Genetics - Color Phases Mutants and Phenotypes - Axolotl
If this is a parasitic issue, what would you recommend to rid them of the parasites? Panacur (fenbendazole)? Any suspects on which they would be, if they did turn out to be parasites, based on the photos? If it's some other parasite inside of them, causing their insides to be damaged, any ideas on what that might be?
They look smaller than white worms should be, to me. Here they are on a penny, for size comparison, although these may just be juveniles.
One thing that does strike me though, is that the male who fathered this clutch was from my own first batch, and they were very hard to raise, for me. I struggled immensely getting them past 1 inch, and was only able to do it by chopping bloodworms into tiny, tiny pieces (like 1 mm) and mixing it up with the baby brine shrimp and microworms (Panagrellus redivivus).
For some reason, baby brine and microworms just didn't do it, even though I was feeding them 5+ times a day, and they had nice orange bellies. They refused to grow, and were starving to death, one by one, no matter how often I fed them.
It seems too strange of a coincidence that these ones would also be stuck at the same size, and be gradually dying, the way mine were before that. They must have been close to this age too, when I finally tried the finely chopped bloodworm paste thing.
These new guys are apparently refusing anything except brine shrimp at this point (and they are also apparently eating white worms, which I am now wondering if they could have possibly injured the guts, by wiggling around too much inside).
Thank you, everyone. Any help would be appreciated.
***UPDATE*** Now she has just seen a live brine shrimp exit from the anus of one who is either dead or close to death. What is going on here?!
