Axo disease outbreak

[elisheba]

i'm calling on your wealth of information to see if you can help us figure out the origin/treatment of a disease (we think) outbreak.

our juveniles (7 originally) are/were housed in a tank about 5'x2', with a penguin 125 bio-wheel filter. they eat mostly pellets and sometimes bloodworms or earthworms. all are over 1 year old, in the range of 6".
yesterday i came into the lab to find two corpses- 1 male leucistic, badly cannibalized and decomposed, and 1 female wildtype, less so.

i did necropsies with the following results:

the wildtype did have a small stone in the lower gi tract, but there was not a buildup of fecal matter above it, which leads me to suspect that the blockage was not the cause of death. there were no other abnormalities internally, but a small amount of "peeling" skin on the hind feet was noticed.

The leucistic was in bad shape. i found no internal abnormalities. externally, the cloaca was very distended and oozing goo. this was probably a post-mortem development. the veins on the head and face were very pronounced, reminiscent of septicemia. externally the skin seemed to be sloughing off in sheets on the body, limbs, and tail. Though it is hard to tell if this was a pre- or post- mortem development, we have not seen this symptom in other dead axos.

Additionally there was a male leucistic still living in the tank that showed prominent blood vessels and sloughing skin.

All remaining inhabitants of that tank are being treated with salt baths and the symptomatic juvenile is being treated with maracyn-two.

We have a strong suspicion that the skin symptoms are due to a fungal infection, but because of the appearance of septicemia are also treating for possible bacterial involvement.

Have you ever seen this before, or have any ideas about how we should proceed with treatment?

Thanks so much, Elisheba

 

[michael]

I'll take a stab at some guesses. It seems like the tank size and filtration are adequate. I'm not crazy about feeding live foods to my axolotls. I do use earthworms for slow feeders. It seems to me that bloodworms and earthworms can give diseases to axolotls. I've had axolotls with skin problems after feeding lots of earthworms. Usually problems can be traced back to heat or water quality issues. I keep my axolotls as cold as I can. Salmon pellets leave a little bit of slime on the tank. I ocassionally wipe this off the inside of the glass with a sponge or my hand. I try to do partial water changes every couple weeks. If done to often the tank won't balance. If not done often enough the ammonia will build up.
For some odd reason wild type and melanoid seem to be more aggressive than other axolotls. A bully could be the problem. Axolotls often have a tough time when they reach sexual maturity. They sometimes get sick for no reason at all when they mature.
If you pick up an axolotl and it's body has a sticky slime that you have to wash off your hand it's a bad sign. It's really tough to guess what happened. When my axolotls have skin problems, fungus, or bacterial infections I always treat the same. I move them to another cycled tank if possible. If not possible I do a large water change. After this I treat for 4 days with Furan 2. Anyone who has read my posts knows I use this stuff like some type of magic elixir when the axolotls aren't up to snuff. I've had good luck with it.

 

[elisheba]

Thanks Michael. We switched to Furacyn (nitrofurazone) from the Maracyn-Two and have used it twice now. The affected animal looks much better, is alert and eating. FWIW, I found out that tetracycline is toxic to axolotl skin (from JG at the IU colony.) We weren't sure if Minocycline (Maracyn-Two) is a close relative of Tetracycline, but Nitrofurazone seemed better suited to our symptoms anyway. Here's the link to my weblog which has text of all the letters and responses we've had on this problem:
http://axolotl.fotopages.com/

 

[elisheba]

Just wanted to update for posterity. We did the full course of treatment with Furacyn, and the affected animal seems to be doing great. The others never showed any symptoms. We cleaned their tank and put them back in. So far so good!

 

[cynthia]

Elisheba, did you upgrade the filtration on the tank ?

 

[elisheba]

sorry i hadn't checked this thread for a while. no, the filtration on the tank did not change (other than i put in a new filter cartridge to prevent any carry over nasties). I did recently experiment with putting a piece of plastic canvas under the filter output to make the water more gentle and minimize any water-flow stress (though i don't suspect that was the problem.) i like it so far. i'll try to post a picture sometime if i ever charge my stupid camera...