Chronic floating problem

[brian]

Since monday, my Albino axolotl has had floating problems. He would get a gas bubble in his system (his skin is nearly transparent, so I can see it), and no sooner would he pass it than he would get another one. He has a REALLY large one in him now, and he has been unable to pass it. I looked around the other posts on floating, and saw that some people had success solving problems with floating with putting them in the fridge, so thats what I'm going to do. Any other suggestions?

 

[anne-marie]

Have you tried separating him/her and placing into a lower water level? Is your axie eating or does he/she tend to gulp a lot of air? I note that you can see the gas bubble but I have had axies around the same age as yours float at the top of the tank when they are being bullied. I would normally be able to see some kind of injury though.

 

[brian]

He was eating when he wasn't floating, but he can't reach the food when he is floating. I haven't seen any aggression between them since I got them (and I doubt there is, they have tons of space) but I know there was before I got them. They were all missing feet, and the melaniod had a chunk of tail missing (which is already almost fully grown back). No new injuries on any of them. He does tend to gulp a lot of air, maybe 3 or 4 times as much as the other two. He is in low water now, just enough to cover him, in the fridge.

 

[anne-marie]

Ok, that's probably a good place for him to see if he comes back down to Earth! The combination of not eating plus gulping air is probably responsible.

 

[brian]

Well, last night I thought we were going to lose the little guy. I checked on him when I got home, and his gas bubble had gotten bigger, and had moved to his underside, so he was floating upside down. I changed his water, and went to bed. When I checked on him this morning, he was perfectly fine! Gas bubbles gone. Yay! He's sitting on top of the tank now, coming back up to temperature. I'm going to do a water change this afternoon, so he goes back into a nice clean tank.

 

[brian]

And once again, the little albino has gas bubbles. I think this is some sort of environmental problem, because the last time I changed his water, he was better within 12 hours. I'm moving him to a small tank with just enough water to cover him. I'm eliminating all the variables from the original tank, and reintroducing them one by one. Hopefully, I'll find out whats causing the problem, so I can remove it from the main tank.