Red marks on tail help!!!

[Tee]

I looked at my axolotl, Anyu, this morning and he had red marks on his tail. I'm scared to death it is red leg or something horrible. Can anybody identify what this is for me? Thank you!

 

[Dominick]

I don't think that's something to worry about. He probably got a bit excited and "bruised" himself.
Unless someone has a different opinion on this?

 

[LSuzuki]

That was my thought too. Watch it and watch for other signs of illness, but it is probably just a minor injury. Look and see if you can find some place he could have damaged it on.

Whether it is an injury or not, pay particular attention to water quality and do extra water changes if you aren't already a water change fanatic.

If you don't already know of a vet that takes amphibians, now would be a good time to find one. It doesn't hurt to be prepared.

 

[Tee]

I do a full tank clean out weekly and then a daily feces removal daily and I remove any uneaten food within an hour or two. I usually check my water levels monthly and they are always fine so I'm hoping he did just scrape himself. He has live and silk plants so I'm thinking he may have scratched himself on the filter somehow? He was swimming around last night lol so maybe he bumped his tail hard. Thank you so much!

 

[Asevernnnn]

Checking water levels doesn't seem very smart if you do weekly full cleans, which you shouldn't be doing anyway. Completely cleaning out a tank, will crash your cycle, and you would have to start all over again. Partial water changes weekly would be good, only completely cleaning it out because of a disease outbreak or if you're setting It up for a new animal

 

[Tee]

I don't take all the water out. By complete clean out I mean I scrub ornaments if needed, rinse or change filter cartridge, scrub the sides of the tank, pick up all feces etc, and add however much water I took out when I removed the junk in the tank. Thanks.

 

[allied123]

That is exactly what it means to do a full clean? you're scrubbing the good bacteria off of the surfaces and granted most of the bacteria lives on the filter media cartridges are not suggested because you have to change them and changing them crashes your cycle. I suggest getting some filter sponge or ceramic media in your filter and not scrubbing everything down every week.

 

[LSuzuki]

I'd like to refute two myths.

First, 100% water changes will not crash your cycle when done correctly and appropriately.

So, when can a very large water change crash your cycle? 1) Definitely if you fail to dechlorinate your water. 2) Probably if the water is too hot or too cold. 3) Possibly if the water parameters are very different from what was in the tank. 4) Definitely if you let the tank and filter dry out. In those instances, the bacteria are killed and your cycle crashes (and you have probably also killed whatever you had living in the tanks.)

A large water change may appear to crash your cycle if you have chloramine in the water, since the dechlorinator will release the ammonia in the chloramine and you will have a huge ammonia spike.

Having said that, usually you should not be doing super large water changes, since usually the water parameters will have shifted from what comes out of the tap, and so a super large water change will change the parameters in the tank. Aquatic creatures like steady good conditions, not fluctuating conditions.

Second, cleaning your ornaments/tank interior will not crash your cycle if you have an appropriately sized filter, properly seasoned filter.

If you don't have a properly sized filter or properly seasoned filter, and then you take all of your ornaments out and sterilize them, then you may kill off enough bacteria to crash your cycle. But if you are just wiping them clean with tank water and returning them, you will likely still be fine, especially if you do it regularly. So to be safe, if you are swapping a lot of filter media, you probably shouldn't also clean all of the ornaments.

Similarly, yes, you can vacuum all of your gravel at the same time without crashing the cycle. However, if you have an axie in the tank with gravel, we have something else to discuss.

If you ever fear that cleaning the tank may have compromised the cycle, start testing parameters daily until you are sure everything is fine.

How did we go from the OP's question about some red spots to this rant? :happy:

 

[anjelloca]

I dropped my axolotl a few days ago and she has red marks like that all down her dorsal tail, she's already getting better, she finally came out of hiding yesterday. Just minor scratches. As long as Anyu (I think I may see him in my tumblr tracked tag all the time lol) is eating okay and his tank parameters are ok he'll probably be fine.