Kelly Castelo
New member
Hello there
I apologize in advance for problems with my english. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to make you understand the situation, since I find the use of the english language very hard in contexts such as these (diagnosis etc) but, please, bear with me. It's also a long story...
I desperately need help. My axolotl is one year old and she won't eat. She's terribly thin and I am at a complete loss of what to do. I took her to the vet and, since she had no external signs of anything, he decided to have her x-rayed. He thought she might have swallowed gravel or something. The exam showed a severe problem with her spine (I'll try to upload the images here). So the vet now is linking the fact that she's not eating with the spine problem - but I'm really not that sure if that stands because, for a very long time now, she's had this irregular sinuosity in her body that I now know has to do with the irregularity of her spine - but she ate before.
Anyway, we were all baffled with the results. The vet said there are three possible explanations:
The first is trauma >> which startles me because I have no idea how she could have been hurt like that inside her tank;
The second is nutritional deficiency >> even though he says nutritional deficiency is usually linked with alterations in the bones density and it seems there's no such thing. But she's been mainly feeding off sinking pellets for carnivore fish, which was the only thing I ever got her to eat consistently. Even though I would offer her brine shrimp, blood worms, tenebrio larvae (she never liked those) from time to time, the only thing she would always accept were the pellets. So, nutritional deficiency could have happened, right?
The third is genetic.
Regardless of the cause, the vet has no idea what to do and said he had a colleague at the São Paulo Zoo that might help, but I haven't had any news yet.
The day after our vet day (during wich she was intensely manipulated, and we had to go from one place to another in order to get her x-rayed and be back etc - so, stressful) I noticed she had a part of her finger missing. Where the upper half of the finger was supposed to be, there was this white fluff thing, that looked pretty much like saprolegnia to me. I freaked out. I mean, she's already pretty weak and thin. After consulting the forums here and the axolotl site, I decided to give her salt baths, and I did so for 3 consecutive days. The white fluff is gone and the wound looks good but she's taking forever to grow the finger back.
She's also had an issue with a fish - around 2 months ago when the feeding problem became more prominent (I even considered she'd stopped eating due to the stress caused by it, but I took the fish away and nothing changed) - and lost most of her gills. I mention it because she hasn't grown her gills back yet either. And it worries me. It shows me she isn't well because we've had a fish/gills issue once before, to which she recovered very fast, in a matter of a few days.
Amonia levels in the tank is of 0ppm, and ph is 7.2. The temperature is a problem since it's summer here and Brazilian summer changes the world into an oven. But I've managed to keep it around 24ºC with cooling fans and ice bottles.
After over a month without eating at all, I managed to make her eat one worm (Perionyx excavatus) on Dec. 25th (christmas present) and that was it.
Any suggestions?
It's the first axolotl I have - actually, she's even the very first axolotl I've ever seen. I don't know anyone else who owns any of those animals. They are not common pets in Brazil. It was even a chalenge to find a vet for her. What I mean is, probably I screwed up due to ignorance, but I'm trying very hard to do right by her now and I need help doing that. I need help not letting her die.
Thank you
I apologize in advance for problems with my english. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to make you understand the situation, since I find the use of the english language very hard in contexts such as these (diagnosis etc) but, please, bear with me. It's also a long story...
I desperately need help. My axolotl is one year old and she won't eat. She's terribly thin and I am at a complete loss of what to do. I took her to the vet and, since she had no external signs of anything, he decided to have her x-rayed. He thought she might have swallowed gravel or something. The exam showed a severe problem with her spine (I'll try to upload the images here). So the vet now is linking the fact that she's not eating with the spine problem - but I'm really not that sure if that stands because, for a very long time now, she's had this irregular sinuosity in her body that I now know has to do with the irregularity of her spine - but she ate before.
Anyway, we were all baffled with the results. The vet said there are three possible explanations:
The first is trauma >> which startles me because I have no idea how she could have been hurt like that inside her tank;
The second is nutritional deficiency >> even though he says nutritional deficiency is usually linked with alterations in the bones density and it seems there's no such thing. But she's been mainly feeding off sinking pellets for carnivore fish, which was the only thing I ever got her to eat consistently. Even though I would offer her brine shrimp, blood worms, tenebrio larvae (she never liked those) from time to time, the only thing she would always accept were the pellets. So, nutritional deficiency could have happened, right?
The third is genetic.
Regardless of the cause, the vet has no idea what to do and said he had a colleague at the São Paulo Zoo that might help, but I haven't had any news yet.
The day after our vet day (during wich she was intensely manipulated, and we had to go from one place to another in order to get her x-rayed and be back etc - so, stressful) I noticed she had a part of her finger missing. Where the upper half of the finger was supposed to be, there was this white fluff thing, that looked pretty much like saprolegnia to me. I freaked out. I mean, she's already pretty weak and thin. After consulting the forums here and the axolotl site, I decided to give her salt baths, and I did so for 3 consecutive days. The white fluff is gone and the wound looks good but she's taking forever to grow the finger back.
She's also had an issue with a fish - around 2 months ago when the feeding problem became more prominent (I even considered she'd stopped eating due to the stress caused by it, but I took the fish away and nothing changed) - and lost most of her gills. I mention it because she hasn't grown her gills back yet either. And it worries me. It shows me she isn't well because we've had a fish/gills issue once before, to which she recovered very fast, in a matter of a few days.
Amonia levels in the tank is of 0ppm, and ph is 7.2. The temperature is a problem since it's summer here and Brazilian summer changes the world into an oven. But I've managed to keep it around 24ºC with cooling fans and ice bottles.
After over a month without eating at all, I managed to make her eat one worm (Perionyx excavatus) on Dec. 25th (christmas present) and that was it.
Any suggestions?
It's the first axolotl I have - actually, she's even the very first axolotl I've ever seen. I don't know anyone else who owns any of those animals. They are not common pets in Brazil. It was even a chalenge to find a vet for her. What I mean is, probably I screwed up due to ignorance, but I'm trying very hard to do right by her now and I need help doing that. I need help not letting her die.
Thank you
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