Strange Behavior as of Late...

[officerPuckles]

So recently Officer Puckles has been doing very very well, no complaints whatsoever!
Up until this morning....
I woke up, and simply could not see him in his tank whatsoever.
I finally found him floating under his rock cave, but pressed up against the roof of it.
Now, he is doing a whole lot of hanging out at the very very top of the water, with the top of his mouth out of the water, and his back leg.
He has also been kind of slanted to the right when he has been doing this. He looks off center and dead ish.
Put i have been gently touching his tail to get him to move a little, just in case he is dead one of these times (that hurt to say )
But whenever he is prodded he swims around happily, then returns to floating on the top of the water.
I don't know exactly what is wrong, or if this is normal behavior.
His water temp is fine. He has been eating fine, for the past couple of days he has even been attacking our fingers with much vigor whenever we stick them in there.

I guess the weirdest thing is his back left leg being turned up, causing him to waddle swim with a lot of off center movement.
We turned the filter on for about 2 minutes just to oxygenate the tank, but he freaked so we turned it back off.

 

[axolotyl girl]

you MUSt keep the filter on, perhaps adding a spray bar if current frightens him. Otherwise the good bacteria that process ammonia in the filter will soon die after a day and water quality will deteriorate very quickly with no filter. This will cause ammonia and nitrite in the tank to increase to toxic levels and make the axo sick

 

[Kaysie]

I absolutely agree.

By turning the filter off, you're creating an anaerobic condition in the filter, and your bacteria die. When you turn the filter back on, you're releasing all these dead bacteria, and their waste products, into your tank. This can include ammonia, nitrite, hydrogen sulfide, etc.

 

[officerPuckles]

We will leave the filter on for a bit and see what happens. We might just muffle it with something so the current doesn't drive him wild.

 

[memojo1979]

What sort of filter is it? Or, more importantly, what does the output flow area look like? I know people have used sponge to reduce flow with sponge filters / filters that have a pipe Firstly, try aiming any flow against the side / corner of the tank, as this helps to reduce flow. Or, put something in the tank that flow is directed against.