New owner, gills damaged overnight?

[Lairel]

I adopted 3 axolotls two days ago and I have been concerned, I don't know if their behavior is normal, they don't seem to move much and I understand juveniles are supposed to be more active. But the most concerning thing is that one of them has lost a couple of the gills, or experienced shrinking gills. I don't really know. I have a picture attached. I have my thermostat set at 60, and their tank is kept at room temperature. I have been feeding them frozen bloodworm cubes (I don't know how much they are supposed to eat.) They are approximately 5 months old. There is a filter in the tank and it is just a clip on that doesn't seem to cause too much movement. I don't know about the current water condition, but the tank they are in got a full water change yesterday before I added them (before that they were in a plastic tub with water from the breeder.

 

[Neotenic_Jaymes]

Your copper axoltol looks ok besides the damaged gills. Keep the temps low as possible and feed it. The gills will regenerate. As far as activeness, it can vary. I've had some that were very active and others that were very docile no matter how old they were. At about 4-5 inches they can eat half a cube to a full cube of blood worms easily. At about 5 months of age an axolotl should be about 4-5 inches.

When you say (full water change) hopefully you didn't use sterile water. Aged/cycled water is most preferred. Water quality can affect the length of gills. Bad water quality will shrink axolotl gills. Just incase you didn't know check this out Caudata Culture Articles - Cycling.

 

[keiko]

When they are growing you can feed them as much as they want to eat once or twice a day. They put all the extra energy into growing and won't get fat. Once they're big you can feed them every other day or even less often. Chopped earth worms or good quality pellets would also be a better diet. Bloodworms are ok when they're too small, but it doesn't have all the nutrients that an axolotl needs.

The gills will be fine, just make sure the water parameters and temperature stay perfect.

 

[Cacique]

I would check out the link Neotenic Jaymes posted. Have you cycled your tank? If not I would get a test kit for your water, I recommend the API Freshwater Master Test Kit which you can get at any LFS or chain pet store or cheaper online. But if your tank isn't cycled you need to test it every day or twice a day for ammonia and do the needed water changes to keep the ammonia down under .5ppm I believe. Basically just keep doing water changes until you see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites and get some nitrates, then your cycle should be set and you can cut back to the weekly water changes for maintenance.

How big are they? If you can get them to eat earth worms it'll help them grow quicker and your axie to heal up his gills quicker. I get the baby dillies at Walmart and they're about 3-4 inches long, the big ones are about 6-9 inches long or so. You can feed 1 worm the size of your axie (I don't count the axies tail for this) and if they're too small you can cut up the worm to bite sizes (the width of their head). Canadian Nightcrawlers are the most easily accepted earth worm by axolotls from what I've read.