My Leucistic has gone very Red and is floating on the surface

CraigWild

CraigWild

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Hi
My Leucistic has gone very red and is floating on the surface alot.
It has been very warm here, but I have done my best to keep the water temperature down, it reached about 23c today, i'm just about to do a water change to cool it down a bit.

Do you think she has gone red because of the heat or could it be something different?

I appreciate any help.

Many thanks
 
More information.

I have just done a water test, the results are:

PH = 7.2
KH = 3d
GH = 16d
NO2 = 1
NO3 = 50

I have been feeding them earthworms, axie pellets and frozen bloodworm.

They haven't been eating much if anything at all the last couple of days maybe a pellet or 2 and a mouthful of bloodworm.
They usually go mad for worms!!

Thanks again in advance for any help or advise.
 
Have you got an ammonia reading? Perhaps your cycle has crashed. If anything the heat should be making them more hungry.
 
Hi, it looks to me like your cycle has crashed. I would get her out into fresh water and fridge them for a few days...my NO3 is usually around 10...heat should definitely be making them more hungry as Beks says. and yes your ammonia reading would be helpful but if she were mine i would get her out
 
Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it.
I'm going to do the amonia reading now.

Thanks again

I've also attached a photo of her.
 

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Ouch, that looks a bit like sunburn. I would concur with previous posters that your cycle has crashed and your ammonia has probably spiked.

Have a look on ebay for indian almond leaves they may help soothe your axies skin a bit.

search the forums for tea bath instructions and instructions on how best to use the almond leaves (you basically just float them in the water from what I understand).

I think at present some lovely cool clean water is the way forward.
 
Thank you for the reply

I have just done an amonia test and it is above 0.25ppm and below 0.50ppm.

I will have a look for the almond leaves, thanks for that.
 
I would immediately take your axie out of the tank and in a tub of fresh dechlorinated water. Do 100% water changes daily and rinse the tub. This is not ammonia burn the ammonia is not that high. My ammonia has been higher then that in a cycling tank with axies in it and have no had any ill effects(obv not letting it go over .50 though) i suspect there is more going on but first things first we must rule out water quality. There is something seriously wrong so taking your lotl out of the tank and in fresh water you are at least eliminating one potential problem. Do you dechlorinate your water? Has your tap wAter been shocked lately? Have you fed it anything different? Almond leaves or a black tea bath may help soothe its skin..
 
Sorry for posting again, are those eggs in the tank as well? Or pellets, its hard to tell
 
Hi
thanks for your posts.
The things that look like eggs/pellets in the photo are bubbles, I think my camera just picked them up funny.
I dechlorinate my water with Nutrafin Aqua Plus.
I haven't fed them anything different, I just feed them earthworms, frozen bloodworm (defrosted) and axolotl pellets.
I will take her out of the tank and keep her seperate to see how she goes.

I have ordered some almond leaves tonight and i'm going to see if I can get some from the shops in the morning.

Do you think I should take the others out too? I have 4 in a 60 gallon tank, 2 of them are swimming around like mad and the other one is pretty calm.

Thanks again for your advise.
 
What is the temperature in your tank? I know you said 23C at the top but does it get warmer then that?
 
It is 23 at the moment, the most it has gone up to is 24.
I have put a bottle of water in the freezer which I was going to float in the tank to cool it down some more.
 
I found the bottles of water only do so much. Do you have the lid off and a fan blowing on the water? I find that drops the temp around 4F at least. The water bottles didnt do anything but keep the wTer from getting warmer then 74. I had to fridge mine one day so far but now that we have an a/c the temp stays a consistent 68-70F.

Have you considered fridging them until you can get the tank cooler? I would wait for more opinions because i dont want you to fridge your leucistic and find out it was a bad idea since im not 100% sure what is wrong. But i know cooler water wouldnt hurt(finding a cooler spot in the house to keep the tuperware container)
 
Yes I have the lid off and the tank is below a ceiling fan which I have on all the time at the moment.
The tank is in the coolest place it can go in the house. I'm going to get a clip on fan tomorrow to give it an extra breeze.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Do you have vet near you that can treat exotics? If his colour does not start to go down once he is in cooler water I would be inclined to seek veterinary advice just to rule out anything bacterial, warmer temperatures+sunlight=bacteria heaven!

If 2 of your others are "swimming round like mad" and one not my first suspicion would be that they are too warm, I know you say that your tank has not broken the 25 degree 'barrier' yet but individual axies like people react differently to heat and it might be that one of yours is bit more heat tolerant than the others, if you can I would try and get them somewhere cooler, it does not necessarily need to be the fridge, a dark corner of a north facing room may well do it, you may also find that simply moving the tank or container onto the floor drops the temp a few degrees - I have 2 tanks on a set of shelves, my upper tank is consistently 1.5 degrees warmer than my lower tank.
 
Thanks CJ
She looks a tiny bit less red this morning. I'm going to find the coolest place I can fit them and try and get the temp down a few degrees.
I am also going to do some research for a vet near by that deals with exotics.
I'm going to do water changes in morning and at night aswell.

Thanks again for all your help
 
Update:
She is looking alot better today, the redness has come down a alot, although she's not doing much moving around or eating.

The others that are in the tank have calmed down alot, but still not interested in food.
 
She is now back to normal colour :)

I'm going to keep her in the seperate container for another couple of days to make sure.

I think the hot weather has affected them quite a bit, the main tank is now sitting at 22 and they seemed to have calmed down alot in there.

Still not that interested in their food though :(
 
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