Sick black mel

[Theaxolotlsocial]

Hi guys I'm looking for insight on what could be going wrong but 1st I'll set up the back story

My son has 3 axles. 1 is slighlt older than the other 2 that are the same age but different morphs.

The big one is in a tank and we've been waiting to move her to a bigger tank (it's been alow to cycle) and then the 2 thst we got together bc they were young had been living together amd were going to go into the previous tank that our current older axie is in until we figure out their sexes.

Because we are waiting on the tanks the 2 younger ones are being tubbed daily with primed water.

Our Lucy is 100% fine but our Mel has taken a turn.

Typically our Mel is mega social he alwaya comes to see me when I wall in the room and he's very curious. He has the prettiest gills Typically that are perky and lusious.
Until this week.

1st things I noticed were her was a bit more still. And his gill filaments are all still there and lusious but they are floppy. They appear shorter but I suspect it's bc he's no actively flailing them out they seem to just be hanging there.

2nd thing I noticed and I hope I can describe this properly ..his shed his foot skin. I have a photo though it's hard to see but he had a whole foot skin in his hide (which is a mug) and then we did notice a few more.

Since then and I have no way of knowing if this happened 1st or not bc we were most distracted with the other things happening... he seems to have shed his top dorsal fin. There is a line where it was and I can see some tissue where it must have disintegrated off.

Now today I'm looking at him sode by side next to his friend we got at the same time and he almost seems to be shrinking (unless she grew a lot this week) but they were pretty consistently the same size previously.

He is still eating though we are giving him smaller peices bc it seems like effort for him. I'm in Canada and it's still pretty cold here though we did have 1 warmer day (his tub has a fan and it never went over 20) but mostly it's never higher than 17 and I've been keeping him.cooler so he's around 14 /15 bc I know that helps them regenerate easier.

He has no fungus, no abrasions nothing skin wise other than this skin shed in certain areas but he dull had a dull look compared to his normal black.

No one I've spoken to including his breeder has any idea why he'd be doing this the water quality in the same.for all and bc hes being tubbed it's fresh daily.

Any insight would be helpful


He does eat earthworms.from the pet store but they are the same as the other 2 axles.

I'll try to post photos but keep in mind my before photo is from feb 24th so size wise he was smaller but you can see his perky gills and shinier appearance

 

[Theaxolotlsocial]

Hi guys I'm looking for insight on what could be going wrong but 1st I'll set up the back story

My son has 3 axles. 1 is slighlt older than the other 2 that are the same age but different morphs.

The big one is in a tank and we've been waiting to move her to a bigger tank (it's been alow to cycle) and then the 2 thst we got together bc they were young had been living together amd were going to go into the previous tank that our current older axie is in until we figure out their sexes.

Because we are waiting on the tanks the 2 younger ones are being tubbed daily with primed water.

Our Lucy is 100% fine but our Mel has taken a turn.

Typically our Mel is mega social he alwaya comes to see me when I wall in the room and he's very curious. He has the prettiest gills Typically that are perky and lusious.
Until this week.

1st things I noticed were her was a bit more still. And his gill filaments are all still there and lusious but they are floppy. They appear shorter but I suspect it's bc he's no actively flailing them out they seem to just be hanging there.

2nd thing I noticed and I hope I can describe this properly ..his shed his foot skin. I have a photo though it's hard to see but he had a whole foot skin in his hide (which is a mug) and then we did notice a few more.

Since then and I have no way of knowing if this happened 1st or not bc we were most distracted with the other things happening... he seems to have shed his top dorsal fin. There is a line where it was and I can see some tissue where it must have disintegrated off.

Now today I'm looking at him sode by side next to his friend we got at the same time and he almost seems to be shrinking (unless she grew a lot this week) but they were pretty consistently the same size previously.

He is still eating though we are giving him smaller peices bc it seems like effort for him. I'm in Canada and it's still pretty cold here though we did have 1 warmer day (his tub has a fan and it never went over 20) but mostly it's never higher than 17 and I've been keeping him.cooler so he's around 14 /15 bc I know that helps them regenerate easier.

He has no fungus, no abrasions nothing skin wise other than this skin shed in certain areas but he dull had a dull look compared to his normal black.

No one I've spoken to including his breeder has any idea why he'd be doing this the water quality in the same.for all and bc hes being tubbed it's fresh daily.

Any insight would be helpful


He does eat earthworms.from the pet store but they are the same as the other 2 axles.

I'll try to post photos but keep in mind my before photo is from feb 24th so size wise he was smaller but you can see his perky gills and shinier appearance

 

[Autistic Catholic]

Can you show a picture of him now? You say his dorsal fin is disappearing? I have heard that with morphed axolotls, the first thing to go is the dorsal fin. Is he spending more time near the surface? Is he taking more gulps of air?

 

[Theaxolotlsocial]

Can you show a picture of him now? You say his dorsal fin is disappearing? I have heard that with morphed axolotls, the first thing to go is the dorsal fin. Is he spending more time near the surface? Is he taking more gulps of air?

This was him last night and then today.

Today he has more shed so it's almost as if he's shedding a slime coat but he has no real reason to.

Typically he LOVES to lay on that leaf and I would say he likes to stick his head out of the water more than our other 2 for sure.

I had considered that he was Morphing but I've heard it's rare and they doe not long after so I'm choosing to ignore thst bc he's my favorite and I don't want him to die.

I also copied the following from another post ones I started looking for other key words


your axolotl:
- Looks skinny
- has a filmy cloudy slime covering their body
- the top part of the tail that runs their back is missing
- wont eat (mine will eat but it's work for him)
- looks uncomfortable


The article said this was all signed he's shedding his slime coat

So I don't know what I should do. Should I tea bath or just keep keeping him cold. He seems slightly perkier today but he's still not antwhere near as perky as usual

 

[Autistic Catholic]

We can rule out four through seven on this list.

Why Is My Axolotl Shedding? 7 Reasons Why & What to Do | Hepper

Here are the most common reasons why your axolotl is shedding, are they meant to shed? Or is it a sign that something is wrong? You'll want to know that...

www.itsafishthing.com

What water are you using and what water conditioner? TerraFauna AquaSafe and SeaChem Prime will dechlorinate tap water and root out heavy metals. If you are using one of these, we can rule out further issues with water.

Which would leave us with stress from its tankmate and you would have to separate the two smaller ones.

 

[wolfen]

do you know what the water ph is?
when using plastic tubs make sure the tub is scrubbed clean every 24hrs to remove any bacteria.
provided the dechlorinator removes chlorine is the main thing, don't use any stress guard or any dechlorinator that protects the stress coat as this can be harmful to axolotls.
do you know how hard your water is?
you might need to use holtfreters or modified solution go to Axolotls - Requirements & Water Conditions in Captivity for more info.

 

[Theaxolotlsocial]

We can rule out four through seven on this list.

Why Is My Axolotl Shedding? 7 Reasons Why & What to Do | Hepper

Here are the most common reasons why your axolotl is shedding, are they meant to shed? Or is it a sign that something is wrong? You'll want to know that...

www.itsafishthing.com

What water are you using and what water conditioner? TerraFauna AquaSafe and SeaChem Prime will dechlorinate tap water and root out heavy metals. If you are using one of these, we can rule out further issues with water.

Which would leave us with stress from its tankmate and you would have to separate the two smaller ones.

Seachem is what we use and he lives alone we just have an older one we got 1st and one we got the same time. They dod live together quite a while ago but we separated bc the Lucy had a bite in her tail (though ended up we think she did it to herself) so he's been alone for months.

We have many many jugs of primed water alwaya ready. My son is obsessive and detail oriented so he's generally really good with the details.

The fact that the other 2 are fine and he's not is the thing thst is perplexing me. The ONLY thing we've done recently is my son put the black Mel on the left side of the table vs the right where he usually is and it's closer to the Window. But it's really not that close and the blinds are usually drawn closed.

do you know what the water ph is?
when using plastic tubs make sure the tub is scrubbed clean every 24hrs to remove any bacteria.
provided the dechlorinator removes chlorine is the main thing, don't use any stress guard or any dechlorinator that protects the stress coat as this can be harmful to axolotls.
do you know how hard your water is?
you might need to use holtfreters or modified solution go to Axolotls - Requirements & Water Conditions in Captivity for more info.

Where we are our water is extremely hard for sure. But as I say the other 2 axies are fine. I will check out that link though as I haven't been able to find much in how to help it other than plants .

These tubs are by no means the permanent home for these guys they were supposed to go into tanks forever ago by my tank was not cycling properly (its been 3 months uug) so I could see maybe it being a bacteria issue? My son has been cleaning the tubs daily BUT my scrubbing power is definitely better than his so I did the cleanings last night and really scrubbed them. Debating on just grabbing a new tub for him altogether poor guy. I feel so bad for him but he def looks like maybe it's his slime coat but he just doesn't look like other photos I've seen.

I guess if we assume it's his slime coat peeling and the deep clean I did last night helps what else do I need to be doing

 

[Autistic Catholic]

It's probably a bacterial issue then and you might try alternating tubs on a daily basis or taking up more cleaning duty or cleaning it with your son. Hopefully he gets better soon.

 

[wolfen]

Seachem is what we use and he lives alone we just have an older one we got 1st and one we got the same time. They dod live together quite a while ago but we separated bc the Lucy had a bite in her tail (though ended up we think she did it to herself) so he's been alone for months.

We have many many jugs of primed water alwaya ready. My son is obsessive and detail oriented so he's generally really good with the details.

The fact that the other 2 are fine and he's not is the thing thst is perplexing me. The ONLY thing we've done recently is my son put the black Mel on the left side of the table vs the right where he usually is and it's closer to the Window. But it's really not that close and the blinds are usually drawn closed.

Where we are our water is extremely hard for sure. But as I say the other 2 axies are fine. I will check out that link though as I haven't been able to find much in how to help it other than plants .

These tubs are by no means the permanent home for these guys they were supposed to go into tanks forever ago by my tank was not cycling properly (its been 3 months uug) so I could see maybe it being a bacteria issue? My son has been cleaning the tubs daily BUT my scrubbing power is definitely better than his so I did the cleanings last night and really scrubbed them. Debating on just grabbing a new tub for him altogether poor guy. I feel so bad for him but he def looks like maybe it's his slime coat but he just doesn't look like other photos I've seen.

I guess if we assume it's his slime coat peeling and the deep clean I did last night helps what else do I need to be doing

if you can get some almond/catappa leaves and place into the tub with him.
normally I'd say the water wasn't hard enough but because you have quite hard water it could definitely be bacterial.
with your water being hard just using 2g salt per litre water should suffice instead of holtfreters solution (holtfreters provides minerals and salts to the water, if the water is hard then the minerals are there just need salts)

 

[Theaxolotlsocial]

if you can get some almond/catappa leaves and place into the tub with him.
normally I'd say the water wasn't hard enough but because you have quite hard water it could definitely be bacterial.
with your water being hard just using 2g salt per litre water should suffice instead of holtfreters solution (holtfreters provides minerals and salts to the water, if the water is hard then the minerals are there just need salts)

So we have hard water on our taps in cold water but we do have a salt softener in our hot. We only have sea salt I'm guessing its table salt that's better?

 

[Theaxolotlsocial]

It's probably a bacterial issue then and you might try alternating tubs on a daily basis or taking up more cleaning duty or cleaning it with your son. Hopefully he gets better soon.

So I went out and bought 2 new tubs that were substantially larger and he seems to be much happier and moving around a ton already. He's still loosing tissue but I'm hoping his activity level means he's starting to heal up. Could he have actually been upset about the size of his peramaters? As I said we've been trying to get this tank cycled for 3 months now (it keeps getting stuck st 1ppm ammonia unless I do a water change..if I dose back up to 1 so see if it's working it keeps staying at 1 to next water change it just can't ever seen to get its self down to 0) but anyway so he was subsequently in this tub much longer than expected.
Here he is just now peaking up at me and looking for me like he used to

 

[wolfen]

when cycling the tank keep a eye on the ph, if it drops below 7 then add enough bicarbonate of soda to bring it up to 7.4 - 7.6
don't do a water change on a cycling tank unless the nitrates get to 110ppm or higher.
if it isn't able to remove the ammonia after cycling for such a long period then your filtration is to small.
also make sure your water is oxygenated enough as the filter bacteria require oxygen as much as your axolotls will.

 

[wolfen]

So we have hard water on our taps in cold water but we do have a salt softener in our hot. We only have sea salt I'm guessing its table salt that's better?

it needs to be salt that hasn't been altered for human consumption,