Toni wont eat!

L

lisa

Guest
My axolotl Toni used to be healthy and full of life but about three days ago she stopped eating and lost her plumpness that female axolotls have. I'm getting worried that somethings wrong with her. Is it normal for axolotls to refuse food?

Also one of my other axolotls has started floating at the surface of the water for hours on end. She also refuses food about every third day but will eat again the next. When she sits on the bottom her tail floats up but she keeps her front feet on the ground. She is fat on one side and skinny on the other. Is this normal. Sorry, I've got lots of questions but I want to make sure they are all right.
Can anybody help?
 
Have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrites and nitrate and what is your tank temperature?

Axies do go days sometimes a couple of weeks without eating. How often are you feeding your axies when they do eat? I assume they are all adults.

Usually if the tail end floats up they need poo and may be blocked/constipated? You could try putting her in a icecream container of dechlorinated water and lower the water so its just above her fin so her tail doesn't rise and feet can rest on the bottom and doesn't stress her. Change the water each day completely.

Do you have sand or pebbles/gravel in the tank?
 
my axi does that too it floats and every once in a blue moon it does the tail thing
 
the temperature in the tank is between 15 degrees and 18 degrees. I feed them every day and they used to eat whatever I gave them. Also I have gravle in my tank, its small enough to be mistaken for an axolotl pellet but I have never seen her eating them, yet.
 
Regardless of how small gravel is, just like sand, axies will swallow anything that can fit in their mouth either invariably when you feed them as they suck the food in (bit like a vacuum!) and also if they happen to be snuffling around. And if you ever see an axie when it poos out gravel it aint pleasant to watch (enuf to make you wince), tho yours is much smaller than what ours pooed out (1.5cm to 2cm pebbles!)

How big are your axies? Just because they used to eat everything everyday, doesn't mean they will all the time. As they grow bigger, they seem to take a bit longer to digest the food, which is why they will sometimes ignore food if offered. If 15cm+ feed every 2 days, 20cm+ every 3/4 days.

Have you tested your water, if you don't have the test kits to test for ammonia, nitrite then take a sample of water to the petshop and ask them to test it and give you the readings/no.s if ur not sure what they mean post her.
 
Wow! Thats a big pebble! Toni is about 22cms long and I also have a male (Troy) who is about 25cms long. Troy still eats everyday.

I just had a look at Toni now and noticed that it looked like her skin was sort of flaking off! I saw this on Troy a few weeks back but he dosn't have it anymore. It sort of just scrapes off? Also I saw that she has a sort of small graze on her face by her nostril and it almost looks as if its been cut open. She also has a red line on her left front leg that looks like a cut or a vein but its not bleeding. I'm starting to get a bit more worried about this. Does anybody know whats wrong?!!!! I didn't see this till tonight.
 
The pebble is one of those glass rounded ones (previous owner had them on it). I didn't realise until then they could swallow something that size and still have it come out.

Gosh Troy sounds like Brodie, my greedy one, she is a guts will eat anything and everything given a chance, and is always first to rush over when she knows its feeding time.

Is there anything in your tank she could have scraped herself on? Just keep an eye on it and if it looks infected start her on saltbaths. Is her tail pinkish too, just that when our leucs are stressed and their tails go pink, a reddish vein shows in one or two of their legs as well.
 
My Chilli isn't eating at the moment either, the scallops I offered this morning are still sitting there (I will remove them shortly) and I just offered an earthworm and he backed off. He does sometimes seem interested in the food and snaps at it but if he doesn't get it with his first bite he loses interest. He hasn't eaten now for four days but seems fine so I am trying not to worry.

Incidentally I have had Chilli since July, since then he has had large stones in his tank but I was finding the dirt was getting between them and I was missing it so decided to take them out, a couple of day ago I noticed he pooed a couple of piece of gravel which he had been on in the pet shop.

Christine
 
yes it can take months for them to rid gravel out of their little bodies. From 4 axies we have a bowlful of pebbles and gravel that have been thru their systems.
 
The gravel in her tank is quite small, about the size of an axolotl pellet, she could have been eating the gravel but maybe I just didn't see?

On closer inspection the red line is deffinetly not a vein. Its a jagged cut that runs from where it joins to a little past the elbow. Is there stuff you can get that will heal cuts and stuff on aquatic animals?

Do you know if axolotls are territorial or fight over another axolotl? I have two tanks, one used to have Troy and Toni in it, the other had my other female wildtype (Martini). When Martini started to float and stop eating I put her in with Troy and Toni and she was fine. I had her in with them before I got another tank but they Martini started to fight (I don't know which one it was with) so I took her out. Thats when she started to float. I was thinking, will two female axolotls fight over one male? So last night I took Troy and Martini out as well as anything that looked sharp so that she couldn't get any more hurt.

I'm going to ask a stupid question now, Whats a salt bath?
 
We had one male mixed with 3 females and no fighting. The females tended to knock him out of the way when it came to feeding time, but he just seemed to shrug it off!

The best things for cuts and helps it to heal (over time) is daily saltbaths, 2=3 times daily. Exactly as it sounds a saltwater bath. You use 2-3 teaspoons of salt for every litre or pint of dechlorinated water. Give it a bit of a stir to mix. Use aquarium salt, but if you don't have aq. salt and want to start saltbaths asap you can use uniodised table salt until you get the aq. salt. Place your axie in it and leave it for 10=15minutes. No more than that as the salt will start to burn your axie.

Also, did you manage to test your water?
 
Ok, I'll start giving her a saltbath every day. I wasn't able to get the stuff for testing the water because the pet shop has been closed because of labour weekend.
 
I know, damned nuisance, I forgot it was labour weekend as I work from home so no difference in time and popped out to get some more brine shrimp eggs for my friend. When you go out take a sample of both tanks in a marmite/vegemite jar or similar (and ask them to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates and give you the figures). We always used to get ours tested at petshop for free, so would be surprised if they charge u for it. If you can only afford one at this stage, get ammonia (usually $15 for each individual test kit, or you can get the complete freshwater master test kit for $55-$75 at petshops or $45=$55 on TM)
 
Toni is looking much better and after a 5 day hunger strike she finally ate some mince. What other meats should I be feeding her because she seems to be very resistent to axolotl pellets.

Her face is deffinetly looking better and less saw but she still seems unable to swallow her foods.
 
Gawd I don't blame her, only 2 of ours ever ate pellets and now totally refuse (so we have a whole jar wasted in the cupboard). Gotta be careful with mince as the meat is minced up with the fat which can be quite bad for them. If you can get lean meat, chop the fat off. In our household our axies don't get snitzel, steak or shrimps! You can get a 1/4 of a ox heart or sheeps heart, much cheaper to buy than other meats even mince, but cut all the sinewy and fatty bits off. We chop it into cubes after that and toss it in the freezer, when you need them pull out a couple of cubes and slice into wormlike strips b4 feeding. They last for months. We only use them when I can't be bothered getting worms from our wormfarm in the evening.

Do yours eat earthworms, they are one of the best staples; and if you have this wonderful rainy weather that we have down in Wgtn then you should be able to pick them up in your garden (lift the garden furniture, potplants or any pieces of wood or brick = there's heaps)and most of all they are the cheap!

Other alternatives are frozen bloodworm cubes, either thru TM or petshop and live crickets (haven't tried that yet but might this summer if I can find any!)

\
 
You said that you don't feed your axolotls snitzel, steak of shrimps is this because its bad for them?
 
No because husband would probably toss me out of the house, giving his favourite foods over. I know some people gives their axie "only the best meat" but refuse to give them worms. We love our axies but draw the line at giving them too much meat, ours prefer worms; especially the baby worms.
 
The salt I got to start the salt baths with is called tonic salt. On the directions it says to put half a teaspoon with 4 litres of water. Do I do this or do I put 2-s teaspoons per litre?
 
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