Urgent - sick axolotl

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clofuller

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My axolotl stopped eating for awhile so I decided to put her in the fridge. I am doing daily water changes and daily black tea baths (for about 20 mins - a mug full with two tea bags). I have done this for about a week but there is no sign of improvement :( There is white build up on her gills which I'm pretty sure is a fungal infection but may be slime build up? She is still not eating and the fungi is not going away. I don't want to try salt baths because I previously lost an axolotl doing salt baths for her fungal infection. Is there something more I could be doing? The fridge light is taped down and I match the water temperatures before moving her to clean water.

Any advice would be very helpful
Thank you
 
for fungus meth blue works awesome, adding 1 tbsp per 10g of salt as a constant low saturation makes a huge difference without the stress and is completely safe and often improves health with just that.

you can use a turkey baster to push some water at the gills to see if the stuff is attached or loose
 
@clofuller

How is your axolotl doing? That methylene blue that @Calgarycoppers mentioned is the real deal, it'll clean up the fungus but you gotta use it right. Otherwise, the salt bath regiment. I recently completed a week of it with my axolotl and she's doing better. I could give you the lowdown on what I did, if you want.
 
@EasternRomioi3

Ill look into the methylene blue? but if you could also share your salt bathing procedure I would appreciate it a lot. I'm also concerned that she hasnt eaten in a long time, should I try and force feed her or will it be fine?
Thank you so much
 
My last axolotl had a super aggressive fungal infection and I was doing salt baths and her flesh was falling, off her her eyes rotted away but i just didnt know what to do. I know it sounds horrible but does anyone know the fastest/least stressful way to kill an axolotl. I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily
 
clofuller said:
My last axolotl had a super aggressive fungal infection and I was doing salt baths and her flesh was falling, off her her eyes rotted away but i just didnt know what to do. I know it sounds horrible but does anyone know the fastest/least stressful way to kill an axolotl. I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily
Click to expand...
I believe clove oil works. You can also search how and when to euthanize an axolotl in the search button. Hopefully you won’t have too, but if she’s truly suffering, I agree.
Reading about this makes me feel sick, but I hope it helps, and if your axolotl is truly suffering, she should be euthanized if you think she will will not recover or is extreme pain.
 
@clofuller

DO NOT KILL YOUR AXOLOTL INTENTIONALLY. No, no, no. Buy some methylene blue of Amazon or do salt baths. I will tell you how to do them. First, how old your axolotl? Mine is a full grown, almost 3 year old adult female. So what I did for her is as follows....

2 quarts of fresh water in a bucket, with enough depth to fully submerge her and with enough room for her to straighten out. Put an air stone in to oxygenate the water. Then add 4 teaspoons of aquarium salt. I recommend API aquarium salt, it's cheap and easy to measure. I did 2 baths a day for 4 days with my axolotl. I did 1 of the 2 baths are 15 minutes and 1 at 10 minutes. She recovered within a week, already grew back all her tendrils.

Then after 4 days of twice daily baths, I switched to 1 bath a day. If your axolotl is young and not full grown, do not use as much salt. You need a nice clean bucket. What kind of filter do you have? I have 3 air pumps for my sponge filters, I just switched a hose line to the air stone when I did her baths.

I personally have not used methylene blue yet. I just purchased it the other day and has yet to come but when I get it, I can tell you about its instructions.

Love your axolotl, we are here to help, I am trying to help. If you need to talk, you're welcome to message me. Please, show up photos of your axolotl, let us help. Maybe we can see what's going on and help. I am so sorry for the loss of your previous one. I think the fungus was just too extreme and I don't think you accidentally killed your pet. Please, don't give up.
 
EasternRomioi3 said:
@clofuller

DO NOT KILL YOUR AXOLOTL INTENTIONALLY. No, no, no. Buy some methylene blue of Amazon or do salt baths. I will tell you how to do them. First, how old your axolotl? Mine is a full grown, almost 3 year old adult female. So what I did for her is as follows....

2 quarts of fresh water in a bucket, with enough depth to fully submerge her and with enough room for her to straighten out. Put an air stone in to oxygenate the water. Then add 4 teaspoons of aquarium salt. I recommend API aquarium salt, it's cheap and easy to measure. I did 2 baths a day for 4 days with my axolotl. I did 1 of the 2 baths are 15 minutes and 1 at 10 minutes. She recovered within a week, already grew back all her tendrils.

Then after 4 days of twice daily baths, I switched to 1 bath a day. If your axolotl is young and not full grown, do not use as much salt. You need a nice clean bucket. What kind of filter do you have? I have 3 air pumps for my sponge filters, I just switched a hose line to the air stone when I did her baths.

I personally have not used methylene blue yet. I just purchased it the other day and has yet to come but when I get it, I can tell you about its instructions.

Love your axolotl, we are here to help, I am trying to help. If you need to talk, you're welcome to message me. Please, show up photos of your axolotl, let us help. Maybe we can see what's going on and help. I am so sorry for the loss of your previous one. I think the fungus was just too extreme and I don't think you accidentally killed your pet. Please, don't give up.
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If their axolotl truly is going through what they described, euthanizing is the kindest method.
 
But if they can still fix it with the salt baths or with medicine, I think it's worth a chance. A blameless animal that can do no wrong to another person is worth a lot to me. Though I admit, I am horribly biased. My mom's vet clinic refuses to do random euthanasias but many vets will just do it on request. Fun fact, more dogs are put down in December than any other month. I am surrounded by death at my house, so I tend to be very "keep trying" when it comes to animals.
 
All fungus can be treated.
Unless the axolotl is prety much dead already, in which case euthanasia is also unnecessary.

However, treatment is completely useless if you don't remove the source of the problem. Salt baths and methylene blue can remove the fungus on your axolotl, but it will grow back just as quickly if you don't fix their environment.

There are no "super agressive fungus infections" - there's only bad water quality, and fungus as a result.
Make sure your water is OK first - after that you can treat the fungus.

What are your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates values? Temperature? What do you feed, and how do you feed it? Any substrate?
Pictures of the axolotl and the fungus would help as well.
 
@Murk
It is a bare bottom tank and I feed her earthworms that i wash before feeding as well as axolotl pellets which i just drop in and she eats (3 worms and a sprinkle of pellets). The temp is usually around 22. I do weekly water changes of 1 third and wash the sponge filter in dechlorinated water. I have no way of testing the ammonia nitraites or pH but i use seachem prime dechlorinator which detoxifies ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and the town water is ph 7.1. I have another axolotl kept in the same 70 L tank and she is perfectly healthy - no fungus healthy appetite. I have seen one instance where they were aggressive toward eachother so maybe that is a source of stress
i will upload pictures asap

thank you
 
@Murk

Thank you for jumping in on this.

@clofuller

Give us a chance to help. Get the tank parameters that Murk asked for. How often are you doing water changes and do you pre-treat the water or do you let it naturally dechlorinate on its own?
 
clofuller said:
@Murk
It is a bare bottom tank and I feed her earthworms that i wash before feeding as well as axolotl pellets which i just drop in and she eats (3 worms and a sprinkle of pellets). The temp is usually around 22. I do weekly water changes of 1 third and wash the sponge filter in dechlorinated water. I have no way of testing the ammonia nitraites or pH but i use seachem prime dechlorinator which detoxifies ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and the town water is ph 7.1. I have another axolotl kept in the same 70 L tank and she is perfectly healthy - no fungus healthy appetite. I have seen one instance where they were aggressive toward eachother so maybe that is a source of stress
i will upload pictures asap

thank you
Click to expand...

"Detoxifies" does not mean "remove". It just means it prevents the effects of ammonia for about a day. Since you do weekly water changes, there's a chance you are having ammonia issues - especially if you simply drop in pellets.

Except for rare illness or injury, fungus infections always come because of water quality issues. You'll definitely need a test kit.
 
clofuller said:
My last axolotl had a super aggressive fungal infection and I was doing salt baths and her flesh was falling, off her her eyes rotted away but i just didnt know what to do. I know it sounds horrible but does anyone know the fastest/least stressful way to kill an axolotl. I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily
Click to expand...
Okay I read this wrong. I read it as your current axolotl was going through this. Definitely don’t euthanize your axolotl since I don’t believe it’s in this state. I’ve seen a lot of people offer a lot of helpful suggestions and would go with those. I’ve never felt with fungus, so I wouldn’t know how to help.
 
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