Skin peeling and shrinking gills?

[gandalfandloki]

I brought home my second axolotl about a week ago and immediately noticed small clear film in the water, which I assume to be his slime coat or skin. He’s currently in a ten gallon fully cycled quarantine tank with low water flow and a consistent temperature of 66 degrees, however, the pet store I got him from was housing him in the same tank as angelfish (which require water at much higher temperatures of 78 degrees). After a couple days of bringing him home, I noticed that his gills were shrinking significantly. I immediately tested the water parameters and there was a very small amount of ammonia (0.25) and I’ve been doing 30% partial water changes every day since. I initially was conditioning the water with Prime, but after reading a couple threads I decided to switch to API Stress Coat to see if it could help possibly soothe his peeling skin. I will also be picking up some Indian Almond leaves to help with that as well. I haven’t noticed any peelings in the past couple of days, but I want to heal his slime coat as much as possible. As for his gills, I’m very concerned and honestly don’t know what I should do. I was concerned that the ammonia could have caused it, but it’s at such a low level (although 0 is obviously more ideal) that I don’t think that it could have caused as much damage as it has. I think it might be more possible that he contracted some disease or fungus from being in the wrong water conditions or from the angelfish. I’ll attach photos from when I first brought him home to now so you can see the difference. I started to think he might be metamorphosing but I really hope not. Any advice on how to treat this and help grow back his gills/ slime coat would be much appreciated.

 

[Hayleyy]

Can you check with the store that you got him from of the species? It doesn't look like the usual A. mexicanum (axolotl) from what I can see.
The IAL should help with the slime coat, just check the pH regularly as it can make it drop rapidly. You can add some coral chunks into the filter to raise pH if it does drop. The gills may be a lingering affect of the store. Keep the water nice and cool, and within good parameters and it should help. Do little water changes (15%) every couple of days to bring down ammonia. Prime can throw ammonia results so you may see better results since switching.