EllieWind
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2018
- Messages
- 124
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- 43
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- Age
- 31
- Location
- Utah
- Country
- United States
- Display Name
- Ellie
This is a bit of a doozy, so buckle up.
I rescued Mocha, a juvenile copper axolotl, from a pet store that usually takes good care of their axolotls, but for some reason had severely neglected this one. She was very underweight and had reduced gills and dorsal fin along with a damaged slime coat. This was in December, by the way. I've had her for four months and in that time her gills have regrown mostly, her slime coat has healed, and she has come back to a healthy weight and I thought things were going pretty well. About three weeks ago I noticed an anchor worm on her side and immediately separated her from her tankmate, began treating her (and her tankmate) with salt baths and fridging, and tore down the tank to disinfect it. While quarantining her I noticed that she had some exposed toe bones on her right front leg, but figured it was the result of a bite from her tankmate. I took her to my local vet, who was pretty much completely useless (wasn't familiar with axolotls and admitted to not knowing how to treat them), so I continued the salt baths for about 5 days and then kept her fridged for three weeks until I saw no more signs of parasites and her injured limb was mostly healed.
I've only had her back in her tank (which has been mostly re-cyled via water from my established 55 gal adult axolotl tank along with filter media from my fish tank, but I am still keeping an eye on it) for less than a week but I've noticed that her other forelimb now has exposed toe bones and looks irritated, along with her back legs which sport a nasty flap of torn skin. I haven't seen any biting from her tankmate, though I'm not ruling it out; but it looks the damaged areas are growing worse and I'm concerned that she may have a bacterial infection or possibly limb rot. She is still active, eats fine, and hasn't been showing any of the classic signs of stress like curled gills or tail, and her tankmate appears completely healthy. I have her back in the fridge and have ordered some Furan-2, though it won't get here until next Tuesday.
She shares a 15 gallon tank (will be upgraded to her own 20 gallon soon) with a 5 and a half inch juvenile albino, and I literally used my last test strip on another of my tanks today, but the last time I checked the tank perimeters were 80ppm nitrate (did a water change to lower them after testing), 0ppm nitrite, ammonia at 0.25 (I dose with Prime so this may have been a false positive), and a ph of 7.8. The temperature fluctuates between 61 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. No substrate with a sponge filter.
My question is, am I doing the right thing by continued fridging and will a treatment of mild antibiotics be sufficient to treat her or is there something else I can or should be doing? Sorry if I'm a bit paranoid, but I've worked hard to get this poor baby healthy and want her to remain healthy.
I rescued Mocha, a juvenile copper axolotl, from a pet store that usually takes good care of their axolotls, but for some reason had severely neglected this one. She was very underweight and had reduced gills and dorsal fin along with a damaged slime coat. This was in December, by the way. I've had her for four months and in that time her gills have regrown mostly, her slime coat has healed, and she has come back to a healthy weight and I thought things were going pretty well. About three weeks ago I noticed an anchor worm on her side and immediately separated her from her tankmate, began treating her (and her tankmate) with salt baths and fridging, and tore down the tank to disinfect it. While quarantining her I noticed that she had some exposed toe bones on her right front leg, but figured it was the result of a bite from her tankmate. I took her to my local vet, who was pretty much completely useless (wasn't familiar with axolotls and admitted to not knowing how to treat them), so I continued the salt baths for about 5 days and then kept her fridged for three weeks until I saw no more signs of parasites and her injured limb was mostly healed.
I've only had her back in her tank (which has been mostly re-cyled via water from my established 55 gal adult axolotl tank along with filter media from my fish tank, but I am still keeping an eye on it) for less than a week but I've noticed that her other forelimb now has exposed toe bones and looks irritated, along with her back legs which sport a nasty flap of torn skin. I haven't seen any biting from her tankmate, though I'm not ruling it out; but it looks the damaged areas are growing worse and I'm concerned that she may have a bacterial infection or possibly limb rot. She is still active, eats fine, and hasn't been showing any of the classic signs of stress like curled gills or tail, and her tankmate appears completely healthy. I have her back in the fridge and have ordered some Furan-2, though it won't get here until next Tuesday.
She shares a 15 gallon tank (will be upgraded to her own 20 gallon soon) with a 5 and a half inch juvenile albino, and I literally used my last test strip on another of my tanks today, but the last time I checked the tank perimeters were 80ppm nitrate (did a water change to lower them after testing), 0ppm nitrite, ammonia at 0.25 (I dose with Prime so this may have been a false positive), and a ph of 7.8. The temperature fluctuates between 61 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. No substrate with a sponge filter.
My question is, am I doing the right thing by continued fridging and will a treatment of mild antibiotics be sufficient to treat her or is there something else I can or should be doing? Sorry if I'm a bit paranoid, but I've worked hard to get this poor baby healthy and want her to remain healthy.
