Salt baths

[rob]

Hi
i'm having to do salt baths on 2 of my axies @ the moment cause of fungi.
i made up a salt solution of 12 teaspoons of salt to 6lt's of water, but my axies dont seem to like it @ all, they were swimming around like they wanted out, they did settle after a cpl of mins then started trying to breath air and scurry around after 5-8 mins,is this normal ?
i only put them in for 10 mins at a time and was planning of doing it twice a day, but it kinda freaks me out.
also how long should i keep this up ? i'm guessing till the fungi is gone ? but just worried if i do it too long it may harm my axies ?
also do i just use the same solution i mixed up for every bath or should i make a fresh batch every time i bath them ?

 

[edward]

Mix up a new batch of salt everytime you use it. The salt solution is a little stressful to the axolotls as you have changed thier osmotic equilibrium however the short period of time they are in the hypertonic solution is not sufficient to harm them but it does do damage to fungus helping to eliminate it.
The respiration at the surface may simply do the the increased metabolic needs due to the increase in activity.

Ed

 

[rob]

ok thx Ed
i feel a little more re-assured