Question: New Axolotl owner, read plenty (now: diary of Fred's new owner)

Oh no sorry to hear the news as dragonlady mentioned it sounds like fred could do with a holiday in the fridge! I think this could be caused from passing all that gravel maybe he still has some in him?

As for crickets theyre pretty much digestible theres occasionally one or two almost identifiable parts of exoskeleton that get through but i wouldnt have thought would cause problems as are very tiny bits and freds a good size so shouldnt cause problems (crickets have a high meat to chitin ratio(especially when compared to mealworms), so they're not bad just not a good staple) you are still feeding him other stuff right?

Tis just the fact that you are doing everything by the book which makes me feel that this is previous owner related (the gravel being the main thing) im just thinkin if i had been pooping out that much gravel i would surely have a sore bum! lets just hope its something as simple as that!

From what ive read the solution may be to put him in the fridge untill it clears up(especially with the hot weather at the moment he'll probably find it rexaling), im sure someone will tell you what to do for sure!
 
I agree matey, I believe its gravel, and will hopefully pass and he can heal.

I'm glad you've commented on what to look out for in his poop, I'll keep an eye out.

I don;t feed him everyday or anything. He's had a mixture of Crickets and Bloodworms. Only about 3 Crickets to a large packet of worm (4x cubes maybe) in the last week. every other or 3 days. Basically when his gills go pink, I know he's hungry, when he's been fed they go dark red.

The Crickets were also pretty small, maybe the size of a wasp?

I may well fridge him when I get back but he'll be traumatised that he doesn't have his log or trees to climb.

All a chapter of the life of Fred, I'm sure he'll pass whatever it is, and it'll move him forwards to being even healthier.
 
When you put him in the fridge just make sure you put a tea towel over the container so the light doesnt startle him as long as its dark he'll feel secure he wont move much in the cold either so dont worry.(i have never needed to fridge so cant really help further but from what ive heard its not stressful to the axie, quite the opposite!)

I doubt wasp sized crickets im guessin around 2cm? (we only get tiny wasps in the u.k) could do any kind of damage or even have a problem digesting, Gomez eats crickets that are bout an inch or bit bigger and has no problems.(was feeding him "wasp sized" crickets since he was half his size) It is only since feeding these bigger ones I have noticed anything in his poo, its just the occasional tiny armour plate what seems to be the shape of the top of the crickets head that gets through, unlike entire meal worm shells so would have thought a nicely gutloaded cricket would be quite a nutritious snack, just not the all in one package of a juicy earthworm!

Hopefully you can find out for sure if fridging is the best solution soon as poss (i have a feeling it might be), in the meantime i'd reccomend researching the process of fridging just incase (you probably already have knowing you, haha!) need to get Fred all better for his next photoshoot!

Keep us posted!
 
haha,

I had the fridging researched from day 1, in case that time ever came.

Luckily I have two fridges, one is a beer cooler so will turn that up, which i believe sits around 7-8 degrees at the top end and put in in an ice cream tub in there.

That way we won't disturb him getting food in and out of the fridge.

It will be horribly upsetting seeing his empty tank and I fear my GF is going to be distraught at the thought of him being locked away in the little fridge.

I'm just praying for a miraculous recovery in the time I've been at work today, combined with a pile of gravel :)
 
Sorry to hear about Fred! He's such a cute little dude, I really hope he gets better for you, especially after all your hard work. :)
 
I dont know if this is of going to be a concern or not (certainly not trying to worry you im just intrested what the answer would be myself!) but presuming your axie may be away from the tank for a couple of weeks im just wondering what effect it will have on a newly cycled tank? just thinking that maybe without an axie there may be lack of ammonia for the bacteria (will a few weeks be fine?) i dunno if you have to supplement the tank with an ammonia source like abit of food for the cycle to continue, just wondering if all the work getting the tank cycled could be effected in the space of 2-3weeks of nothing in the tank?
It may not even be an issue tis just a thought, would be nice to know if its needed!

All id say about fridging apart from what you'd already know is avoid taking him out of the fridge except to change water and change the water with water kept in the fridge to avoid temperature changes just keep him at a constantly cool temperature ooh also maybe try and get hold of a clear as possible plastic tub so you can easily see in to avoid spooking him by lifting the teatowel lid!

wishing you all the best dude!
 
hi all, on my mobile so please excuse any typos, just wanted to let you guys know...

just went home to find fred very chilled out. swelling is practically gone, no sign of blood or any bubble just a particularly pink or sore patch where the trauma was.

i'll obviously be keeping an eye on him but as the large swelling is literally no longer there at all i can only assume somewhere he's passed whatever was causing the issue.

Looks like I've dodged a bullet here, certainly am not going to upset him as he seemed very glad to see me when i got back so hopefully he'll continue recovery at the rate he has today.

I'm sstill leaning towards a stone as i can't find any sign untill i do a spot check for them under the sand i won't know. theres certainly no exoskeletons knocking about.
 
Just my 15.3 cents worth on crickets. Good for reptiles as they chew pretty extensively and typically have teeth or bony ridges that are up to the task. Many amphibians (well... frogs mostly in my no way complete experience) also have the ability to chew up bugs pretty well. I'm lacking in experience with Axolotls... but I avoid crickets based on my previous experience with other animals and that fact that Axolotls don't seem to chew very well. They inhale food like an old Hoover and while I see things go in and out a few times on occasion the food items seem to remain pretty whole. :happy:
Crickets are more nutritious than many other bugs... but they are very chitenous (assuming that's even a word)..... and unfortunately the chitin to "guts/nutritious gooey goodness" ratio goes up as the crickets get smaller. I.E. smaller crickets have more chitin than guts. :eek:
Earthworms are more fun to culture and can be cultured in a shoebox size (small) container. They smell better and you won't find one running across your bathroom floor either. ;)
 
Great news, keep him cool still and hopefully all will be well for the little guy.
 
Just to give you guys an update:


  • Fred's Cloaca has continued to reduce in swelling, there is now practically no swelling on the sore side.
  • The pink signs of trauma and sore flesh are now gone.
  • He still has a pink dot in his bum hole and just around it, but everything looks far more normal.
  • He's been very active and is walking, jumping and swimming around happily.
  • A fairly large piece of white gravel was found inside his log.
  • A decent sized poop was found at the back of the tank this morning. No visible signs of undigested bugs
As a bonus:

  • With close inspection it's clear that on his short side, he's definitely regenerating a missing top gill. Right now it's the starting, a thin white filament with minimal feathering but is growing slowly daily.
  • His other gills on his short side are filling out.
  • His gills on his longer side appear to be getting longer.
  • He seems to have grown an affection tot he bubble disc in his brief period of sickness and pines for it when not on. I now reserve it for a treat :)
As everything is looking a bit better I may begin feeding him again tonight, perhaps just 1 small bloodworm cube and monitor his processes.
 
Great news, good ol' Fred pulled through! It must have been that gravel! Haha you gotta get a vid of fred playing in the bubbles! Its so strange that some axies love em and some are frightened by them, maybe you just gotta get the flow just right!

Im so glad everythings fine, i bet thats a massive weight off your shoulders thats one thing about axies, they make their owners worry sick about them by acting weird, doing strange things and having strange eating habits (like going off food for weeks!) but its usually just the weird and wonderful way of the axolotl, such strange creatures!

nice one!
 
He likes you all too.

It's safe to say without the advice of you guys here i would have killed him by now. lol

Anyway latest newsflash from bumwatch 2010, a large amount of poop was just found scattered around the sand, it's safe to say Freddie Pink Bum is functioning as normal.
 
On Friday I was doing some routine tidying up and behind my faux moss ball i found 3 stones and the empty soggy exoskeleton of a cricket.

IMAG0317.jpg
​

They were all together indicating that it was perhaps from one trip to the loo and so I'm assuming this was the cause of all the issues, 3 stones and an empty floppy carcass is a bit poop.



Saturday morning I came into the room to find Fred swimming about the surface, he appeared to be doing a lot of floating for a few minutes I was watching. I of course paniced thinking this was indicative of impaction but after a few minutes he returned to walking around, it appeared as if he was basically trying to say, "hey look, I can swim because im 20 pieces of gravel lighter!"

I treated him with some blood worms and all was well. He stayed on the sand pretty much since.

I actually went away for the weekend and before i left i had noticed something weird on my filter and around the walls of the tank, there was what looked to be a build up of small lines, they looked a little like undeveloped bloodworms or some kind of weird algae.

I left them be as were not causing an issue but when i got home last night Fred was found looking a little annoyed clinging to the back wall. He was really reluctant to come down even when I switched the bubbles on. When he eventually did he was flapping his gills a lot, looking a little unhappy generally and was even resorting to kicking at his gills with his front legs. While it looked quite comical I sensed his frustration so acted quickly.

The flapping was more than the normal 2-3 a minute, more like every second so I knew something was up.

I had noticed that these little lines had spread, there were more over the filter now and could be seen if you looked really carefully on all surfaces.

I did a parameters test, nothing seriously out of whack there (bearing in mind i'm still mid cycle), so i did a large water change (30%). Putting 2 and 2 together i wiped all surfaces inside the tank with a sponge and wiped off the filter housing to reove these wormy things.

After the tank was refilled the flapping stopped and Fred looked happy again.

I'm no expert but unless they were some algae I'm willing to bet that what I was seeing was undeveloped red mosquito larvae, probably as it's Fred's main diet, and that the uneaten had began to spread in the tank, much to Fred's horror. I'll have to watch that in future and make sure I get ever little bit of uneaten food up in case it happens again.

I suppose the issue is while doing the cycle there are additional nutrients in the water for these things to thrive on, which is a problem is suppose as could slow the development of the bacteria I'm looking for to help remove the nutrients from Fred's waste.


I've also noticed the sand looking a little clumpy in places so I think tonight I'm going to be really meticulous and hoover all surface sand up and make sure that everything is looking nice and clean and granular.

These Axolotls certainly are high maintenance, especially ones like Fred who enjoys giving me symptoms of impending death at every opportunity.
 
Thanks tom, that's very useful.

Looks like they were probably Planaria although they didn't appear white, more translucent or cream/red.

advice is:

Reduce feeding. Leftover food can fuel large outbreaks of tank critters.
Remove them manually by wiping them off and/or siphoning them out. If they are snails, pick them (and their eggs) off and throw them away.
Do a better job removing all uneaten food and waste products.
Do a better job adhering to scheduled water changes: at least 10% per week, perhaps more until the critter epidemic subsides.
Be patient. In most cases, we only notice tank critters when they suddenly explode in number. If you wait, they will almost always decrease as their food supply dwindles. Over the long run, they may also be controlled by the growth and competition of other micro-organisms, both seen and unseen.
Click to expand...
From my previous post it looks as though my gut instinct reaction to them was pretty much spot on and my actions were appropriate.

I'm glad I didn't over react and start cleaning mentally, I knew this would ruin my cycle.

I don't actually use any conditioners except a chlorine water conditioner but I cannot remember what that is called.

I'm sure it's down to food, I had been feeding a fair amount to get his weight up and had noticed some uneaten so it's my fault really,

The sand is something I'll have to investigate more / live with. It just appears some of it on the surface is getting clumpy / fluffy.

I'll just have to do a better job with cleaning and hopefully everything will be well again, i had been cautious to how much i cleaned because of the on-going cycle but I suppose there's a balance. :)
 
My tanks from time to time have produced extra beasties . Planaria, some tiny white worms, damsel fly larvae, some tiny leach etc. These tend to disappear with regular tank maintenance .
 
I think I'm just a natural at over reacting.

I must admit I've had a terrible time today getting that bloody tank cool. It's been a real challenge and one I haven't enjoyed so may look for alternatives for the future.

Finally buckeled and bought a cool 1 to 2 adjustable valve system for the airlines. The great thing is i can have barely any air going to the stones now which Fred appears to like.

This leaves a full power line for whatever, so i bought a vacuum that attaches although i think this may take some practice, filled the entire bag up with perfectly clean sand very quickly.
 
omg, was just about to go to bed and noticed Fred had left me a nice large pile of poop at the front of tank, I went to clean it up and after inspection realised it contained, wait for it, no less than 12 pieced of white gravel !!

They weren't all massive pieces but there are 12 all the same.

I've become paranoid that maybe I am introducing these to the tank so have gon through everything with my fingertips, every inch of sand and all ornaments. There's certainly no issue there, despite finding a further lump burried deep down that I'll assume are from a previous poop.

That's not 12 in total now, that's 12 in this poop. We're looking at 35-40 in total i reckon. It's fair to say that these things will eat anything. I'm starting to notice a behavior change when he's about to pass.

One issue I had (which is why i have only a blurry photo of this poop, is that if I'm not careful, Fred being the intelligent creature his is will try and eat the poop, gravel and all. To combat this we just had a bit of a battle as I walled off the poop with a small net while i removed the poop with the turkey baster and the gravel with my hands.

This has to be some kind of record now? How much gravel can one of these things eat?
 
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here's the amazing 13 stones in total I removed from the single poop last night, crazy:
37533_415623172556_509467556_4466334_3512640_n.jpg
 
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