sad news.

Sadly my sons axolotl died today, I am presuming that the hot weather has a lot to do with it, tank is fine apart from keeping the temp low enough, now I am really worried about the other one a bought a couple of weeks back,
background: my son got his axolotl (loydee) for his birthday last July, She had been doing well until the hot weather arrived, I bought her into work as we have an airconditioned office, she seemed to be doing alot better, last week almost every day the weather was very extreme the worst heat on record, anyway at work I putting fozen bottles in the water to keep the temp down, couldnt tell you what the temp goes up to after we go home & until we get to work in the morning, but outside overnight temps have still been high.
We have had the new one (shags) for a couple of weeks & he has been going OK. My question is would I be better of fridging him until I can keep the tanks temp down???
I told my son about his baby & he was most upset, I said that we will bury loydee this afternoon & that I will get him another axy down the track,once I know I can look after shags. Anyways I think I am going to put shags in the fridge & hope for the best, any thoughts would be appreciated, I will not be able to reply to any messages until monday, so I hope this is the right thing to do.
Cathy

Also forgot to mention, I did have gravel in the tank at home, as advised from the pet shop, since looking on this site & realising that is not the right thing to do. The current tank has no gravel just bare, I noticed when I introduced both the axies that there was gravel appearing in the bottom of the tank.
Cathy

Wow Cathy,

Glad you came to this site. The presence of gravel in your bare bottomed tank just goes to show how axies can ingest them and potentially get impacted.

You are doing well.

Cheers

Sorry to hear your sad news Cathy.

Fridging is a good idea, just make sure you chnage the water each day and don't forget to declarinate it.

As far as keeping the temperature to a statisfactory level in the summer, we use frosen 2 litre drink bottles, we have 3 on rotation. We have a 165 litre tank and can keep the temperature at 22 degrees. If you can move the tank to the coolest place in your home.

Good luck.

Hi Cathy,

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Another thing Some Aussie Keepers have had success with in the tank cooling saga is polystyrene foam. The kind that is used in Eskies. Wrapping a Tank in this and using ice bottles to keep the temperature down seems to have worked well.

I have not tried this myself so am only reporting what I have heard.

Good Luck

I am so sorry for you and your son. Putting the other axie in the fridge is the best thing to do if you are having temperature problems.

ianclick said:

Another thing Some Aussie Keepers have had success with in the tank cooling saga is polystyrene foam. The kind that is used in Eskies. Wrapping a Tank in this and using ice bottles to keep the temperature down seems to have worked well.

Click to expand...

This is something that I do. I live 4hrs north of Brisbane and it is normally between 30 - 35C here. I am able to keep my tank at 18C with about 3 ice bottle changes in 24hrs. I have a tank that holds 186lts and I use two 2ltr bottles each rotation. I fill the bottles 3/4 full and add 2tbsp of salt to the water and seal the bottle well to insure that there is no leakage. The salt helps the water in the bottle stay frozen for longer.

I'm sorry to hear about your lose.
I live in Melbourne and lost one of my axies aswell during those three days over 40 degrees.
I now have moved my tank to the coolest place in my house and keep on cycling frozen water in juice containers. The water level is at about 22 degrees and my axies are going fine. From what you've said you and your son are doing nothing wrong. Just keep those temperatures down and you should be fine.
Mitch.

mitchell101 said:

The water level is at about 22 degrees and my axies are going fine.

Click to expand...

22 degrees Celsius is still pretty hot for axies im in nsw and its 40 degrees in the shade. My axie got sick just one week ago. As the others said gravel is a BIG no no so try to get sand or large cobblestones. Also my vet said to keep the water below 26 at all time. Since your tanks water was warm this may have played a part in your terrible loss becuse at 26 degrees or high water is prone to bacterial outbreaks. I say keep him in the fridge and change the water often until the weather cools down or put ice bricks (the things that go in lunchboxes to keep food cold)
And put them in the water (make sure there are no stickers on them)
Cheers Tom

Snazzagazza said:

22 degrees Celsius is still pretty hot for axies im in nsw and its 40 degrees in the shade.

Click to expand...

I know it's still a bit hot but its the best i can do without putting them in my fridge which is probably too cold at 2 degrees. Next week is nice and cool so water temp should be fine.

22° is ok in summer.

What I think is the niftiest cooling method I have seen so far is Example 5 in the article from Caudata Culture - coil a long tube from the filter's output through an ice box (an esky) so that the water cools before going into the tank. Change the ice daily. I like this idea because it is so inexpensive (if you don't count the cost of freezing that much ice). Picture:

Thankyou guys for your replies, as those of you that live in Australia would know, On Saturday in Victoria we had our hottest day on record reaching above 47 degrees in some parts of the state, so the idea to fridge him was the best, my main concern is that he doesnt want to eat, I have tried feeder fish, worm, small slither of steak, pellets etc, he still is not interested in eating, I am doing daily water changes with dechlorinated (sp?) water, so far so good apart from not eating I am offering food a couple of times a day.
Cathy

P.S Thinking of those that may have been affected by fires as it stands 126 poeple have been confirmed dead since the weekend, one of the fires has come with in 30kms from our home & we are on alert.

Hi Cathy,

The fridge is the best place for an axolotl while we are having weather episodes of such extreme heat.

Fridging slows the axolotl's metabolism right down which decreases the appetite, advantageously the weight loss is also slowed right down. In conjuction with fridging an axolotl can go without food for about three months.

Keep up with offering food each day as the axie may get a case of the munchies, but don't worry if the axie doesn't eat while in the fridge.

A worm can survive under water for a couple of days so can be safely left with the axolotl overnight. Replace worm with fresh when it's dead and uneaten.

Heyy Cathy,
I hope the fires down come any closer to your house.
My axolotl isn't eating either. It must be the weather that knocked them around.

I lost another axolotl today. Leon my gold albino. He wasn't eating and got extremely skinny before he was super fat. When i saw him he was covered in white fluff and bacteria he looked extremely bad. The fluff came after he died.

I have bought some products to help keep my last axolotl alive. One is to get the hardness of the water up, one is for another hardness thing and one is to put "millions of bacteria" in the water. I'm not sure if any of it will work but it's worth a try.

Just a question about putting your axolotl in the fridge.
So just put the axolotl in a small container w/ lid or no lid?
How cold is too cold? Is 2degrees fine.
Anything else i need to know?

If Lizzy (my last axolotl) survives i will get her a friend.
If she passes on which i hope she doesn't, i will try to get juvenile axies.

I hope no-one else looses another axolotl.

Mitch.

Hi Mitch,

First, 2°C is too cold - the temp should not be any lower than 5°C or the axolotl's tissues will start to break down. And yes, you should definitely have a lid on that container so your axolotl doesn't jump out.

Water treatment products are iffy. The trouble with trying to maintain things like hardness, pH etc., is that when you first apply the treatment, you get a drastic effect, which then tapers off as the treatment stops working. Then you replace it and bam! huge effect again, which then steadily decreases. Changes like this are to be avoided with an axolotl. Axolotls will tolerate a wide range in pH and hardness. The main thing is that these are at constant levels so that the axolotl can acclimate to its surroundings. For this reason, I recommend against using the stuff for hardness. If you want, you can send it to me, I have an entire cupboard full of things sold to me for my aquarium which I will never need.

"Starter" or "seeder" bacteria is usually bogus. You can't raise bacteria from seeds, and bacteria, as living organisms, need food to survive. How can that little bottle hold live bacteria then? Ok I am speaking very broadly on about 99% of all products, but there is a rumor that there is one product that actually contains live bacteria. Don't remember its name but it is refrigerated and has an expiration date.

I would recommend not putting anything into the water at all - I assume we are talking about your aquarium and not the water in the container in the fridge, right? For the aquariu, let nature take its course - let the tank cycle naturally. For the fridge container, there is no getting around daily water changes.

Good luck to you,

-Eva

Hi Mitch, Sorry to hear that you have lost one of your axolotls, I am fairly new to all this fridging thing so I am sure others can help more than me, I have mine in a food type container in the fridge and over the container I have a net ( like an onion bag, but mine had apples in it.) It seems to be working well apart from the fact that he is not eating, but as mentioned they can go some time with out eating, as long as it is being offered to them. I keep a bottle of fresh dechrinated water in the fridge, to do the daily water changes, I wish you luck with lizzy.
Cathy

Heyy,
The products that i bought are a brand that says it's aussie, AQUA-PICS. The bacteria one says it is a bacteria starter. This bacteria one has to be refrigerated but there is no expeiry date. I was going to buy PRIME but the guy said to buy the bacteria one first to get bacteria in the water then use prime when the ammonia, nitrate and nitrite has leveled off.
I got some pictures of the products.

Hi Mitchell,

From my understanding Prime is actually a dechlorinator. It comes in a red and white bottle and is actually one of the better brands of dechlorinator. It gets rid of chlorine, chloramines, heavy metals and i believe also ammonia and nitrites.

Whenever you are adding new water (ie water change), you should use the dechlorinator. The culture starter is somewhat controversial in efficacy but it shouldn't do any harm. If you are going to use the culture (assuming its alive and well), you should ensure the water is dechlorinated first, otherwise you are defeating the purpose as any presence of chlorines and chloramines would kill the bacteria.

Cheers

Heyy Ray,
Thanks for your help I'm going to give the products a try and see how they go.
I will also buy the Prime because i've heard it is a good brand and gets rid of all those things.
Mitch.

There is a really interesting thread on starter bacteria here. I am going to see if I can get SafeStart here in Berlin and see what it's about. Wouldn't it be lovely to write instead of "starter bacteria is bogus" that "there are a few excellent products, namely..."?

-Eva

There couldn't be any harm done with the products i got i don't think.
No harmful ingredients in there.
Even if there is no bacteria it's worth a try.
Mitch.