Our axolotl’s leg is badly injured/biten

[Elishka]

Hello,

as shown on pictures, our axie’s leg looks pretty bad. We found him like that last night. There are 2 axolotls in the tank, we bought both of them at 01/31/2019. Me and my boyfriend think that he was biten by the other axie, don’t know exactly why though.

Does he has to be separated? Should we make a tea bath for him? Does it really looks very bad or we shouldn’t worry so much and he will regenerate easily?? Please help. We are having axolotls only 2 and 1/2 months so far, not familiar with this situation at all.

Btw. he is eating as before, that’s a good sign I believe.

 

[Hayleyy]

It is a good idea to separate him at least so you can monitor his recovery. You'll want to make sure the water is nice and cool with daily water changes. The arm may fall off and regenerate or the wound will heal. Sometimes limbs grow back weird so don't be worried if it doesn't look normal once it is healed.
How big is your tank and how many hides are there? How long are each of the axolotls?

 

[Elishka]

Its 20 gallons tank with 10 gallons sump which has 7 gallons of water. They have 5 tunnels/pipes for hiding + there are plants as well so they can chill in their shadows. Injured axie is about 4 inches long and he’s been this long when we got him. He is not growing. He had a little apetite at the beginning, he was and still is bloating, but its better now. We found a little stone which doesnt belong to our tank - he probably pooped it and now he eats more. Secondly, his tail is curved (you might see it on pictures) since we bought him. He has problems with balance. It all just looks weird like he was treated incorretly, we really don’t know. We came to conclusion that he will never grow and as far as he is eating it is allright. The other axolotl is growing nicely, its about 6.5 inches long now (they were the same size when we bought them).

We will separate him for sure then. Thank you!

 

[Elishka]

Does it look like bite?

 

[Hayleyy]

I would assume it is a bite. When axolotls are different sizes it's more likely that the larger will bite the smaller so separation is needed. 20 gallons is also too small for 2 axolotls, even though you have plenty of hides. You want 20 gallons for one and 10 gallons more for each axolotl, so 30 for 2.You can get away with less when they are smaller.
If you can get some other photos of the injured axolotl, from a side and above view we can see it's body condition better. Maybe it has dwarfism, hence not growing. It should be a couple of inches bigger now, like your other one. If this one does have stunted growth you'll want to look into making a permanent tank for it. It'll be too risky keeping it with the larger one. If you were to upgrade the tank to a 30 gallon you could use a divider so you don't need 2 tanks.
Do you have a water test kit? Let me know what ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are like in the tank. The curled tail may be fine, I'll wait for other photos to say. I could be wrong but I think I remember that a wavy tail is fine, a curled u-shaped tail is a sign of stress.
Passing the stone is good! What are you offering as food? You may want to mix it up and try different things to get the appetite back on track.

 

[Elishka]

So we put him in the fridge hoping it will help, but he stopped eating since being in the fridge. He ate normally after that accident before fridging.
I attached some more pictures as well to check the tail, bite...
We have also noticed some fungi on his gills while being fridged.
We feed them with red wigglers.
Our water quality is good, we measured and checked everything. We do have other tanks with fish for a long time.
Should we keep him in the fridge or move him back to tank which we can divide..? The leg looks still kinda the same to us so far.

 

[Elishka]

We have black sand in axie’s tank. We found a few pieces of it while he is being fridged which he passed. Is it safe that he sucks sand?

 

[Hayleyy]

I don't think you really need to fridge. It does reduce their appetite due to the cold slowing their metabolism. You can use a fan and/or ice bottles to keep the tub water cool if it's needed. For the fungus I would usually do salt baths but since there is an injury I'd recommend you use indian almond leaves or tea baths. They're more gentle on the axolotl but still fight fungus.
It must have ingested sand but it isn't usually an issue for larger axolotls. How long is the axolotl?

 

[Elishka]

He is about 4 inch long.
We’ll do the bath then
What do you think about his tail?
Thanks!

 

[Hayleyy]

Do you know how old it is? I can see the large cloaca showing it's a male but 4 inches is usually a juvenile and they wont be showing that at a young age. The body makes me think it may be a dwarf axolotl. This could be why the tail is the way it is. I'll try and find more posts of dwarf axolotls for you to look at.

 

[Hayleyy]

Here you go! Have a scroll through to see if you notice any dwarf signs on yours. In some of the pics the wavy tail is there as well so maybe it's something that dwarf axies have?
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=101577
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108513
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=97679
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93903
https://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91217