LeoTheDoctor
New member
My axolotl, during the vast majority of time, is doing fine. Gills look okay, no sign of skin irritation, tail looks fine. But sometimes, after about 2 months, he starts having a very abnormal behaviour. He goes to the surface and gulps air, sometimes it's just that and he is fine, but I don't know what happens some other times he (after gulping air) starts to swim very weirdly and rapidly. It's like he can't get the air out of him, or maybe the air isn't going to where it should go on his body. When he is swimming like that it's noticeable that he seems stressed trying to move his body to a specific side, the left side. He "bends" his body to the left many times while swimming like that. Since he's swimming quickly, his gills get really red and tail as well (that would be normal for an axie while swimming). Another thing that worries me is the color of his legs. Normally they are pale or orange, just like they should be, but when this behaviour happens we can see his legs become purple. To me, this seems an oxygen problem. It seems like he is either having trouble getting oxygen or having trouble getting the blood to his legs. The problem probably isn't in his veins since his legs don't look bigger. After sometime with that weird behaviour, it's common for him to try gulp air again but not be able to swim all the way to the surface. That would make his oxygen problem even worse. There was one time that this even led to puking. I even posted a thread here when it happened. I maneged to reduce the times he is not able to swim to the surface by lowering the amount of food I give him. After that he never puked again. To try to solve this problem, as soon as I notice the swim or see his legs purple I quickly put an air pump inside the tank. Normally I put it right at the side of his gills. He seems to move them more when I do that, maybe trying to get more oxygen. After a while doing that I put the air pump at the sump (cause I'm affraid he might try to eat the air stone). About 1-2 hours later he seems better. I think he gets better quicker with the air pump on.
So I've been thinking, do I let the air pump on indefinetly? I've always been affarid of air pumps because I've seen people saying that the axie might lose his gill fillaments when we do that, due to too much dissolved oxygen. But I also heard people saying the opposite. Some say he will stay with the gills because he's using them more. I don't know how biologicaly correct these statements are. And I tried to find more stuff about this but the effect of an air pump on an axolotl's gills doesn't seem to be that well known. I might put the air pump working for more hours and let it on once per day. I will take photos and compare his gills as well as his behaviour.
If someone has any advice or has an opinion on what is actually this weird behaviour and the purple legs, please tell me.
So I've been thinking, do I let the air pump on indefinetly? I've always been affarid of air pumps because I've seen people saying that the axie might lose his gill fillaments when we do that, due to too much dissolved oxygen. But I also heard people saying the opposite. Some say he will stay with the gills because he's using them more. I don't know how biologicaly correct these statements are. And I tried to find more stuff about this but the effect of an air pump on an axolotl's gills doesn't seem to be that well known. I might put the air pump working for more hours and let it on once per day. I will take photos and compare his gills as well as his behaviour.
If someone has any advice or has an opinion on what is actually this weird behaviour and the purple legs, please tell me.
