Floating Axolotl...Help!

[amethyst]

hey there,
I'm minding two axolotl for my friend who is overseas for 10 days. He assured me they were easy to look after and wasn't worried about them.
I have fed them successfully and regularly, but now one of them is kinda swimming up to the top and resting on the air filter tubing and generally looking unhappy.
I'm guessing after reading info on this site and forum that it is to do with stress from temperature change (I live in Melbourne, Australia, and although the tank is kept in a room with evaporative cooling the temperature has risen above 24 degrees several times in the past few days). It is cooler now, about 20 degrees celsius.
We have put an anti fungal treatment in the tank. What else can I do to help save this little one's life?? How can I ensure the temperature doesn't fluctuate too much? Would it stress the axolotl more to move it to a cooler house?
Help please! I don't want to produce a dead animal when my friend comes back! Thanks!

 

[amy]

is he floating as in not able to reach the bottom on the tank with ease? if so, its just gas and he'll probably burp it out in a few hours/days. it might be better to move him to a cooler place but how bad does he look? can you decribe his behaviour in more depth? how big is the tank? good luck!

 

[celia]

Also, what kind of fungal treatment did you use? Some of the ones for fish are quite lethal to axolotls, if you used something bad I suggest moving the little fellas to a new space... I think that axolotls are easy creatures to look after ... except for Aussies the temperature can be killer in summer. I have had some problems too and lost one recently...

If the axie is sitting on top of things and is actually resting on them then it may not be so bad either, sometimes mine sit in higher places if they find a comfy spot. If he's having trouble getting back down though then it is recommended that you place this one in a separate container with a low volume of water and some plants. The low volume of water means that he is kind of forced to sit on the bottom and the plants will help him to stress less by him feeling them on his back... as Ami said it may just be gas...

Also another thing that can cause floating, I have heard, is feeding them beef heart. Nearly all meaty products in Aust for fish/axies have a majority of beef/heart. I was feeding mine this and they had a floating problem too. I have since changed their diet and they seem to very rarely do it now... more for kicks maybe these days.

Hopefully some of these things will help. But most importantly if the fungal treatment had malachite green in it or the blue one then it could be bad for the kids so it would be best to be moving them somewhere else....

BEST OF LUCK...

 

[amethyst]

hey thanks heaps guys...
He was climbing up and resting on things, like the air filter and the tubes, but he looked as if, like Amy said, he couldn't reach the bottom with ease. So maybe it was gas..is that very dangerous? But today is much cooler, and he seems a lot happier; he is sitting on the bottom again!
They are in a 100litre tank. Oh and I have only been feeding them axolotl pellets.
Oh the fungal treatment was one my friend gave me with the fish..but it does have malachite green in it...

is that bad for them? I presumed since my friend said to use it if they got sick it would be alright for them...

thanks for the help

 

[celia]

If your friend has used it before in low low doses then perhaps he knows how much to use etc. Honestly, the vet that I took my yella fella too actually suggested the same thing for my other two but I have been too scared to use it. They have really sensitive and absorbent skin so it can be quite toxic to them. Apparently at low low doses it can be okay but it still not advised. What the vet did suggest was giving them a bath in it instead at a much lower dose. If it was your friend who recommended it then I wouldn't stress too much, at least it's not like you ran out and bought something that your friend would have said "OH NO... not that" to.

Maybe do a bit of a water change so that there is less malachyte in it, the only problem is that water changes take out good bacteria and so does the treatment.

The heat is a massive thing though. Mine hate it when it gets hot. They look like we all do on a hot day, just laying about, not wanting to eat, not wanting to move - feeling crappy. I think it's similar to that.

In Australia you can pick up the evaporative air coolers pretty cheap. Although you are only baby sitting so you shouldn't have to run out and buy something... I suggest getting a few 2L coke bottles, filling them 3/4 up with water and chucking them in the freezer... then when they are solid just circulate them, floating one at a time (or two on a really hot day) ... when the ice melts in the bottle it's time for a new one. I find this an EXCELLENT way of keeping the temperature down and keeping it from fluctuating (such as if you just chucked ice in there).

Axies much prefer cooler weather. They naturally come from mountain snow capped regions and can even survive with ice in their little lakes... they are most happy between 12 and 20 and 20 is really the high end of things... So if you can get them cooler this should help heaps.

Also blow a fan across the top of the water. I just put a fan up on my cat stand on hot days (which the cat hates because she can't sit there planning ways to dive in and eat them)... The fan across the water creates a cooling effect as weel and will also help bring it down another couple of degrees.

I hope this all helps... others on this site have probably got more useful information than me. I am relatively new to all of this. I've only been in the axie game for 12 months now and I only recently encountered any problems for the first time. It appears though everyone having probs at the moment is an Aussie so my assumption is the heat is the biggest factor of all.