Skin change?....

[joão]

hi does someone know if axos as almost every reptiles and amphibians, change their skin?
it never happened to me before, but one of my axies left some skin floating in the tank, she looks fine , but it is strange.

 

[joão]

I said that she look fine but actually, she looks a little week, sometimes she´s trying to swim to the top for food, and she can´t.

 

[cynthia]

João - I have never seen or heard of an axolotl "shedding its skin".

If your axolotls skin has been damaged by salt or poor water conditions or infection it could start to sluff off.


Test your water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph and let us know what they are.

 

[joão]

no the levels seem to be fine , but she was sick with internal parasites I think, and she was in the fridge for almost one month and treated with a medicine, when she came out of the fridge I put her in a separated small tank, to see if she was doing fine , she was doing ok, and I decided to put her in the big tank with the others, and right when she got in the tank her skin started to shed, it was skin all over the tank, she now stopped, but seems a little week, I think the small tank had a different type of water condition, and when she got to the big tank was just to different, so it was like a shock to her skin, that´s my thought on that... I don´t know.
She is eating fine, she is not as active as she were in the small tank but axies do that when they are in a new space , she follows my finger , she do all the stuff , but just seem more week than she was before.

 

[grant]

Axolotls cannot shed skin. All reptiles shed their skin but amphibians cannot (there are a few exceptions but not axolotls). Axolotls have very moist and delicate skin and they are very affected by their environment/environmental changes. That is one of the reasons their numbers in the wild are so low and declining. If the water was different from the small tank to the larger one what was the difference? Did you test both waters? And do you know what the pH of the water is? Axies like hard water as you probably know and should have a fairly high pH (over 7.5).