Illness/Sickness: Peeling skin, curled tail

[Visi]

My leucistic has been stressed out since her tank mate died about a month ago. Her tail has been curled since then and I can't figure out what to do. Water parameters:
NO3: 0
NO2: 0
Gh:16d
Kh: 6d
Ph: 6.8 (recently added coral rock to bring this up)
Cl: 0
Temp: 15C

She's got a clump of white stuff on her back. I can't tell if it's skin or fungus.

Fridged her for 4 days with one salt-bath a day, but the clump is just bigger or looser (can't tell which) than it was when I started, so I put her back in the tank today.

Previously, I had tried to avoid chemicals as much as possible, but I noticed the chlorine never got better than 2, so yesterday,I put some "amphibian supplement" which acts as a de-cholinater, and adds vitamins, minerals, amino acids and such. I tried using the pipet on the clump to see if it would come off, but that only stressed my little Phantom out more. She's not her usual energetic self. Maybe it's the colder weather making her tank 15C rather than the 19C it was up to a few weeks ago, maybe there's a stressor I haven't identified yet.

Should I wait and see if the treated water improves her condition? If so, how long do I wait?

Should I give her more salt baths? Or because I'm not sure what it is avoid those?

She's still only about 10 months old and I'm having trouble taking a picture of the clump (white on white in a dim tank on a 10cm axolotl is tough to photograph).

 

[Olivia97]

What is the ammonia level? Do you have large rocks as substrate? My guess is its not fungus and you're aggravating it being salt bathed. Usually fungus will come off quite easily. She may be more legargic because of the water temperature. What does her diet consist of?

 

[Visi]

Bare-bottom tank. I change about 20% of the water a week and have a canister filter. I haven't checked the ammonia recently. I need to buy new test stuff for it, but I thought the No2 and No3 reading 0 meant that ammonia wasn't a problem either. One rock (the coral wrapped in a cloth, so she doesn't scrape herself on it) Two plants: Anubis nana and willow moss on a hunk of driftwood.

Her diet is amphibian pellets. I've been raising some cherry shrimp, but I've only had them for a few weeks, so I haven't put any in her tank yet. Tried frozen bloodworms before, but I think they were bad. I think it fouled the water, and that was shortly before Muppet (her tankmate) ate the marimo (lake-ball that was the other plant in the tank) and died when he was unable to pass it. If Muppet felt he needed to eat a plant after the bloodworms, I figure they probably weren't the best food.

I stopped the salt baths. Should I do something about the temperature or is it ok?

 

[Sam77]

The temperature is fine. They prefer colder water, but They tend to be less active at lower temperatures so this may be why she is lethargic. It might be an ammonia problem if uneaten food has fouled the water, and also her tank mate dying in the water might cause an ammonia spike. I would do a larger than normal water change incase there is anything making her sick in the water. Definitely don't do salt baths unless you are sure it is fungus. Are you sure her tank mate died from eating a moss ball, or could there be another reason? Tea baths are supposed to be good for skin problems, but I have never used one. I have added Indian almond leaves to their water before, they are supposed to do the same thing. Hope she gets better soon.

 

[wandering]

Tea baths? Tea is very acidic. Test a cuppa before you put the milk in. My tropical fish have benefitted from the odd tea bag chucked in for half an hour but don't axies do better in alkaline water?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[wandering]

Muppet may have eaten the Marino ball because it was moving? I know my babies won't eat anything unless it moves in front of them.

Btw
In my experience with fish most problems come from ammonia, whether by not having a mature tank/filter, a death in the tank (especially the bigger animals), over zealous cleaning of the filter, new filter sponge, etc. I always test for ammonia first, then nitrite and then nitrate. If there is any ammonia or nitrite I check for dead fish, plants etc and do a 20% water change immediately. I always have nitrate in my water as it is in my tap water. Not a problem in small doses.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Visi]

Muppet had half-pooped the marimo so it was sticking out of him for two days before i started to fridge him. Two days in the fridge and two tea baths later, he passed away, still with the marimo sticking out of his bottom. After Muppet died, I moved Phantom to a temporary tank while I cleaned the 40L one in case it wasn't the marimo. I changed all of the filter media, cycled the tank for a week using rotting food pellets as an ammonia source, cleared out the food, changed 50% of the water then another 20% later before putting Phantom back in. Since then, I've been changing 20% a week and now that I have this conditioner, I think I'll use it for all my new water.

Update: Phantom has been spending a lot of time on and around the sponge in-take filter (it's diagonally in the water, so she sometimes sits on it). The white stuff is mostly gone, but her tail is still curled.

My apartment has no insulation (thanks Japan), so the temperature in the tank doesn't stay consistent. I have insulation around three sides of the tank (top is open, front is bare so I can see her and the short side has the filter attached) is there any thing I can do to keep it a little more consistent?

 

[Olivia97]

Your tank definitely wouldn't be cycled if you did a complete over haul. One week isn't long enough, if course keeping substrate and hides etc will speed it up but with new filter media, the process would start again.

 

[Visi]

How long should I have cycled it?
And what should I do now?

 

[Kaysie]

Cycling can take up to 2 months.

You should cycle your tank again.

 

[Visi]

She's going back in the fridge while I figure out what to do with the water in her tank. I subjected my poor girl to the flash to get these pics of her skin condition:

 

[Visi]

How should I go about cycling it this time? Should I keep her in the fridge until it's done? How do I know when it's done? Both the pet stores I went to were out of ammonia test kits!

 

[Olivia97]

Then buy one off the internet (they're often cheaper too) I'm sorry she does look really irritated but it's not clear. There's no need to keep her in the fridge as long as its dark, quiet and below 20 degrees then that's fine, I would suggest a tea bath or some almond leaves as they are very soothing.
for tea bath-
boil 1 cup of dechlorinated water and steep a plain black tea bag for about 5 minutes
cool and add to 10 litres of dechlorinated water, add this water to her container, there's no need to take her out just do your normal daily water changes until it's no longer present in the water.

 

[Visi]

boil 1 cup of dechlorinated water and steep a plain black tea bag for about 5 minutes
cool and add to 10 litres of dechlorinated water, add this water to her container, there's no need to take her out just do your normal daily water changes until it's no longer present in the water.

So if I change 10 litres (about 25% of the aquarium size) to this dilute tea solution, she can stay in her tank?

Thank you so much, Olivia and everyone! This community is very helpful.

 

[Olivia97]

My concern with your tank water is that the parameters are out of whack so probably best to steer clear of there. Just use one big household bucket they usually hold about 10 L

 

[Visi]

She's in the tea treatment, but she hasn't eaten or pooped in nearly a week. The last time she attempted to eat, she spit it out and now she won't even open her mouth anymore

 

[Visi]

Final update: I found a vet finally.

Yesterday, i woke up and she was upside-down, her belly inflated. The vet drained the balloon of fluid from her belly. He determined she had gotten something stuck in her stomach, possibly ate part of the sponge intake filter. Because she's so little, she's too small for surgery. There's nothing left to do. :'(

 

[AxieLover21]

i'm so sorry,, could u pull it out with tweezers?