Permanent damage to gill from fungus?

[dkeat]

Hey everyone, I recently discovered a small white patch of fungus on my axie's gill. The infected gill itself seemed to be shrinking and loosing all of its red gill fimbriae. Since then, I've given it one salt bath which seemed to remove all traces of white fungus from the gill. I've also replaced all of the water in my tank, cleaned the sand, and cycled in frozen water bottles to keep the temp down. It seems to be doing a lot better now, but the gill is now significantly smaller and still missing all of the fimbriae. (The gill is still a little red where the fimbriae used to be.)

My questions are:
-Will the gill eventually fully regenerate?
-Is there anything else I should be doing to ensure good health for my axie?


Also on a side note, I recently got a new hide which is about twice the size of my original. Now my axie pretty much never leaves it except for when I feed it. It must also be dark in the room or else it will go back into the hide if a light is tuned on (Its kept in my basement so its dark majority of the time already.) This is a pretty new behavior considering it used to be fairly active and loved basking on top of it's bubbler. Any thoughts? Sorry about the huge post but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[auntiejude]

The gill will regenerate eventually, maybe not exactly the same - it may grow back shorter or even forked.
Good water hygiene and keeping the temp down seem to be the key to preventing fungus. TBH you're never going to eliminate fungal spores in the water. You need to keep up the daily salt baths for another 3 days to ensure all the fungus is gone.

With you new hide, you can look at it like a kid with a new toy - it's all they want to play with for the first week, then they get bored and go back to their old favourites. Axies are naturally curious and will explore something new. I wouldn't worry for now. And you also have to consider what happens when you're not watching, your axie could be very active when you're not there, and you only ever catch it hiding.

 

[HayleyK]

I hope you cleaned the sand with tank water. Tap water could have killed a lot of beneficial bacteria that lives in the sand. Like Jude said - you can not eliminate fungal spores from water.

 

[dkeat]

I hope you cleaned the sand with tank water. Tap water could have killed a lot of beneficial bacteria that lives in the sand. Like Jude said - you can not eliminate fungal spores from water.

I cleaned the sand by scooping it around to get any buried poop or old food and vacuumed it all up. It took forever to get most of it up but I think I did a good enough job.

 

[dkeat]

The gill will regenerate eventually, maybe not exactly the same - it may grow back shorter or even forked.
Good water hygiene and keeping the temp down seem to be the key to preventing fungus. TBH you're never going to eliminate fungal spores in the water. You need to keep up the daily salt baths for another 3 days to ensure all the fungus is gone.

With you new hide, you can look at it like a kid with a new toy - it's all they want to play with for the first week, then they get bored and go back to their old favourites. Axies are naturally curious and will explore something new. I wouldn't worry for now. And you also have to consider what happens when you're not watching, your axie could be very active when you're not there, and you only ever catch it hiding.

I'll keep that in mind for the new hide. Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to keep up with the salt baths.