Axie's gills look to be chewed or deteriorating

[Vangee]

Hi everyone,

I bought 3 axies back in April and they have been doing fine until recently. Lately my leucistic has been a bit lethargic and yesterday I noticed its gills were either a little chewed or maybe deteriorating, but I'm not sure. It also likes to float at the top My other two (melanoids) seem to be fine. I do have some small rosey red minnows in the tank for a snack for them but I've never seen them nip. Their mouths seem to be too small anyways. One thing I should mention is that my leucistic seems to be a bit of a freak. It came to me with only 2 gills on the the right side. I always figured it came off somehow and would grow back but there's not even a nub in its place. He also came with a small chunk out of the top fin at the back of the tail. Like the gill I figured it was bitten and would grow back but the chunk seems to have grown with him. It has to be at least 8 months old now so I figured these would start growing back so maybe it just takes a little longer.

Anyways, I've posted a pic of its gills. Hopefully someone has seen something like this.

Thanks!

 

[Vangee]

I should also mention that the ammonia levels are fine. everything else is tested at the pet store for me and they say the levels are fine. The temperature has been around 20C for a few hot months but for the past month and a bit it's been below that. Today is about 16C.

 

[tipnatee]

It looks like fungus, there are many fungus treatments. I personally like Catappa leaf extract ( Indian almond leaf) for long term natural treatment, bad case of fungus best to use salt bath but make sure to look up how to do salth bath first cause it's a burn harsh treatment and not so kind to your axololt gills. Sometime I use pimafix for mild case of fungus or just to boost gill health, cause it's easy cheap and it smell pretty nice actually. However there are people that disagree with pimafix or salt treatment so at this point you just need to choose which treatment is best for your axolotl.