Lost one after a salt bath due to fungus scared of losing the other

[allied123]

So I've had my 2 axolotls in a cycled 20 long for almost 2 years now and have had to move twice in this time in Florida summer heat. This time they got too hot on moving day (got to around 74 and took about 6 hours for the tank to cool down to 68) and both developed a fungus on their gills maybe a week after moving them. They've had tiny bits of fungus on the gills before so I just tried to keep the water clean and cool and hope that it went away on its own like it had before.

Obviously it didn't go away this time. One of them started looking much worse very suddenly so I did my first salt bath on him last night and I must have done something wrong. After putting him in the salt bath for 15 minutes, i put him back in a tub of clean dechlorinated water the same temperature and I checked on him after a few hours to find the water bloody. I moved him to a clean tub with dechlorinated water and left him for the night. At that point i just thought maybe the blood was from some skin and fungus loss from a successful salt bath? This morning he was dead. He seemed to be very lethargic and slow and a little less responsive than normal yesterday, no reaction at all to being in the salt bath.

For the salt bath I bought aquarium salt and used 2 teaspoons for liter and used 3 liters of water (so about 7 teaspoons) after reading through the sticky like 1000 times. Was this too strong? I have no idea what I did wrong...

Now I'm concerned for the other one. He has some fungus on his gills but is no where near as bad as the other one. I feel like he probably needs a salt bath but I'm terrified to do one now. I've attached pictures of him where I think you can see the fungus on his gills, that's the only place he really has it. The other one stared getting fungus on the tip of his tail and on his back and stomach, as I said he was much worse very suddenly.

I'm sorry if this post came off as uncaring, I've spent the morning crying and I'm trying to be factual.

 

[allied123]

Well I lost the other axolotl 24 hours after losing the first. I'm sorry no one could help but I don't think anything could be done by the time I realized it was a serious problem. Thank you all for reading, I'm just glad this site exists so maybe someone can get the advice they need.

 

[xxianxx]

Sorry im too late to advise but it looks like the fungus was a secondary infection rather than the actual cause of death. Axolotls with a stripped slime coat due to poor conditions are prone to it. The high temp was not at a lethal level but may have been enough to exacerbate poor water conditions or animals stress levels. From looking at your pics I would think that the condition of the gills would indicate poor water quality, the fungus was a symptom rather than the cause. Did you test your water regularly?

 

[allied123]

I kind of felt like there was something else wrong, The fungus didn't seem bad enough to kill them. I do test the water at least once a month and it was still cycled (0,0, 20-40ish) before I had to move. During the move they obviously got a 100% water change to move the tank and then they were only in the 20 long for less than a week before I moved them into a 40 breeder where they spent less than a week (maybe 5 days?) before they died.

Maybe I'm wrong but I figured even if the cycle had crashed, 6 days in a 20 long and 5 days or so in a 40 gallon tank wouldn't be deadly... After moving them to the 40 I did about a 20% water change after 2 maybe 3 days.

Thank you for your input, I think by the time I realized it was serious it was too late.