Scratching

[tom]

Does anyone know what it means if an axolotl scratches at its gills. For some reason my axie every so often tries to touch her gills with her hind legs. She doen't seem in distres or anything like that just this strange scratching.

 

[tom]

She has stopped it now. Must have been an itch or something.

 

[karen]

sure someone mentioned before that this was a sign of ammnia in the water ? The one i saw in the pet shop was doing this a few days before it died !

 

[sharn]

way back when i didnt know about cycling one of my axies did this, it turned out i had high ammonia readings and once i found out what was wrong thanks to this site i rectified the prob and everything went back to normal

of course it could be other things but ammonia seems to be the most common

 

[tom]

I have just done an ammonia test and it read o so no ammonia. It is a day on since she was scratching and hasn't done it since and seems fine. She did it after a partial water change so the fresh water might have been a shock to her system, she is quite sensitive

. Next time i'll make the water change smaller.

 

[ian]

Do you use a de-chlorinator or leave your water standing for 48 hours before a water change,Chlorine can irritate gills.

 

[tom]

I always add aqua-safe de-chlorinator to the water and leave it a few minutes to take affect.

 

[edward]

Sometimes an itch is just an itch... .

Ed

 

[amy]

ive found that parasites cause this scratching, same as fish when they have parasites they will 'flash' to scratch. is there any way you could get a scraping under the microscope?