Is this Fungus? And any advice? Scared first time Lotl momma

[TXSUNSHINE76]

Okay so my 11 year old daughter has two Axolotls. We got them together on September 11th of 2021 so we have had them about 5 months. They were about 3.5 inches when we brought them home, and now they are each over 7” long and nice full waistlines about even with their heads. They share a 40 gallon breeder tank, with sand substrate, multiple hides for each, a sponge filter and a fluval 307 canister filter with spray bars to reduce current and a chiller that keeps the tank consistently between 61.5 degrees F and 63 degrees F. The tank cycle crashed briefly and during that time I performed 50% water changes daily or every other day as needed. The current water conditions are as follows, using an API master test kit Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, and Nitrate - 5 ppm. PH stays between 7.4 and 8.0, our tap water comes out at 8.6 so with all the water changes it needs tweaked regularly. They eat a mix of pellets and earthworms and seem perfectly happy and healthy until 36 hours ago. This is my first time keeping Axolotls and even with reading this forum for hours, I’m super nervous about how to treat this and moving one out of the tank and all that. So my daughters is a leucistic (Pinky) and on the tip of one gill, overnight seemingly it looks like maybe a fungus has popped up? I’ve attached a pic and the other axolotl Paxton, the light Melanoid seems totally unaffected. Please advise I don’t want to hurt her baby, salt baths scare me and I don’t know how or if a team bath would help? Thank you for your time and any help or encouragement y’all might offer.

 

[BasilBear]

Hello! That does look like fungus to me. What I would do is tub Pinky (you can use a 2 gallon or so bin filled with dechlorinated water doing 100% percent water changes in the tub daily). In doing this it will give your axolotl a completeply sanitary environment to heal in and also prevent your daughters other baby from catching anything. I would also add an Indian almond leaf to pinky’s tub, the tannins in the leaf will help her to heal properly. I also wanted to say that both of your axolotls look extremely healthy and the care that your giving them seems top notch! My axolotl seems to catch fungus quite often, when I asked the breeder about this she responded that some axolotls get sick easier then other just like some people can catch colds easier then others. This might just be the case with pinky. I hope this helps and pinky feels better soon!

 

[TXSUNSHINE76]

Thank you so much! Just did a 50% water change yesterday in the tank and it seems to be a bit less already, I will try the rubbing and find some Indian almond leaves and see how we do. I appreciate you taking a look…I kept finding scary info on the web about this columnaris bacterial infection and I was convinced that Pinky was gonna die like overnight lol!

 

[BasilBear]

Of course! I went through the same panic with mine, I completely understand.