Illness/Sickness: Bought sick axolotl. impaction/fungus/burns

[sp00ky]

Hi!
As of late, me and my partners favorite hobby is to go to different pet stores to look at axolotls. We went to a Petbarn today and noticed that they had gravel substrate for their axolotls. One of them was extremely impacted and we immediately notified staff on how bad their setup is. We asked them to lower temperature, change substrate asap and put the impacted axie in the fridge til it pass all the gravel. They blamed management saying they can not really do anything. So we just ended up buying her to treat her ourselves. We put her in the fridge as soon as we got home and she has now been there for six hours. She has been passing gravel already but we also noticed something on her gills, and are worried it might be nitrate or ammonia burns, or even fungus? I will post pictures to ask for more professional advice and tips on how to treat her.


Also once (if) she becomes healthy, do we still need to quarantine her before we can put her with our other axies? We will probably have to keep her in the fridge for a while. This is our first sick axie but we couldnt just leave her, especially watching her for a bit experiencing her lovely personality

 

[AxolotlChris]

I would have spoken to management if the staff were not prepared to do anything. But at least the Axolotl is safe now.

The gravel will continued to be passed for a while, but fridging will help excrete most of it.

I don't think there is any fungus, the white marks around the gills are typical of a golden albino, my girlfriends has the exact same white streaks on the gills and fimbriae:


As long as you make sure you change the water 100% everyday with dechlorinated water, your Axolotl should begin the road to good health.

It's hard to say on the quarantine, if the Axolotl was only kept with other Axolotls you should be fine.

 

[sp00ky]

I would have spoken to management if the staff were not prepared to do anything. But at least the Axolotl is safe now.

The gravel will continued to be passed for a while, but fridging will help excrete most of it.

I don't think there is any fungus, the white marks around the gills are typical of a golden albino, my girlfriends has the exact same white streaks on the gills and fimbriae:
View attachment 45963

As long as you make sure you change the water 100% everyday with dechlorinated water, your Axolotl should begin the road to good health.

It's hard to say on the quarantine, if the Axolotl was only kept with other Axolotls you should be fine.

Hi, thanks for your reply. We were worried about the gills because it reminded us of ammonia burns on tadpoles. The picture doesnt really show the damage well, we will take a better picture tomorrow.