Illness/Sickness: My baby died :(

[Hayleyy]

Hi everyone,

I have sad news that my axy Castiel has died overnight. I'd just like to see if anyone has any possible reasons?
He has always been a big eater, but hadn't eaten in the past 2 days (I normally feed him every day) and swam away from me when I was offering him food. He had been dropping in weight pretty fast over the past couple of weeks, but since I had him I could never get him to be as fat as their normal selves. The water parameters are all normal (pH 6.6-6.8, 0 nitrate, nitrite and ammonia). I had been gradually lowering the pH over a series of my regular weekly water changes. The temp has been reaching over 20 deg so I had been doing the frozen water bottle method to bring it down (we don't have air con either which probably would have helped), and have been waiting for my aquarium fans to be delivered for the past couple of weeks. I'd fridge him for short periods (a few hours) when temperatures were rising too much. I do think he was losing weight so fast because of the temperature.
When I found him he was at the bottom of the tank, gills all gone (his gills were growing beautifully as well!) and his face bloated
I'm going to wait for my fan to come in, and sort out the temperature before I try to fill the void he has left

Here's some pictures of him being happy, Cas is the golden one
1: the day I got him, and his brother Dean
2: doing their little stands they used to do
3: After the loss of Dean, I fostered my cousins axy. He must have been scared because Cas spent half an hour comforting him like this
4: I think he has watched too much Lion King
5: Cas thinks he can fly! Apologies for the lighting, I did not have his on and my room is greeny/yellow :/
6: realising all this food is for him

Going to miss you Cas

 

[Hayleyy]

Update: I am burying him next to our yellow rose bush, so he can make me some lovely cheering up flowers

 

[Tephra]

I'm sorry for your loss

How long did you have him for? What did you feed him, and how often?
He just seems skinny in some of the pictures...

 

[CJ1981]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[Hayleyy]

I only had him for about 5 months and fed him a mix of crickets, earthworms and pellets every day (except on the odd day every now and then when he just didn't want to eat). Normally he'd gulp down one or two worms, a few pellets and maybe about 2-3 crickets before he didn't want to eat more.
The first two photos are the day I got him, the third when he was at his best, and the last few as he was losing all the weight.
I was planning on giving force feeding a try today, but when I woke up he was gone

 

[xxianxx]

All the pics show underweight axolotls, you may want to increase your feeding regime. The pic below is how they should look, that is one of my females after she layed, that is as thin as she gets

 

[Hayleyy]

Thanks for that, any other foods in particular I should use?

 

[xxianxx]

Thanks for that, any other foods in particular I should use?

Earth worms will do the job. I also supplement their diet with trout pellets, cockroaches, beetle grubs, shrimp and random invertebrates which colonize my tanks such as snail and hog lice but 90% of their diet is lob or dendro worms.

 

[Hayleyy]

Much appreciated. My future axy's shall be nice and plump! I think I'll need to find larger earthworms too, the onces I use are Pisces brand, and there'll all rather small :/

 

[Olivia97]

Just a question of interest, are lob worms better nutritionally than red wrigglers?

 

[peatea]

Sorry for your loss.

The photo of what a healthy axolotl weight looks like is very helpful for us new to this! Thank you.