New member looking for help

[Amerlia]

Hi. I've had an axolotl for about 2 months now. For the past week I've noticed these stringy worm like bits all over the tank. They are on the bottom, sides, the plant, and on the filter. I have to scrub them off to remove and then suck up the bits but they keep reappearing. Does anyone have any idea what is causing these things? Thanks for any help.

[Autumnsky]

What size tank is it? How long has it been running, just 2 months or longer?

What type of water circulation do you have?
Filtration?
Tank size? how full of water?
Lighting?

It could be algae, or fungus.

Do you know the water quality / water parameters for the tank?
Ammonia
Nitrite
NitrATe

pH

Does it move like a literal worm?

[Amerlia]

Hi. Thanks for the reply. I had the tank set up for about 3 weeks before I got the little guy. It has a low flow sponge filter. The tank is 20 gallons and has led lighting on the lid.

The water levels are: Nitrate and Nitrite are both reading at 0. pH is 8.0 (my strips don't include Ammonia so not sure about that)

It doesn't move, but it keeps coming back. I've decided to move him to a different tank and drain this one and start over. I'm familiar with algae from my other tanks so I don't think it is that. Do you think it could be originating from the plant?

[Autumnsky]

Not sure about this. Could be algae, but the way it looks to me seems more like a fungus. If you rub one off what is the texture?

A mystery snail might gobble that right up, whether fungus or algae.

It would be good to know the ammonia levels, as that's the part which can be the start of bad water parameters, illness and death.

Test strips also aren't really reliable. Even after double checking usually monthly, for many months, to compare the test strip reading with tests from the API liquid test kit, to make sure they were reading accurately. I had some test strips which killed most fish in a tank because the test strip wasn't reading the level at all, looking like the water was fine, when it was actually very toxic.

If you can get a LFS to do a test to compare the reading, and take the water sample before you do a pwc, and write down all the reading numbers they test for to kind of keep a log.

And consider getting a FW master liquid test kit and read and follow the directions for shaking the solution.

Online values can be a notable reduced price. Also if you can see what the expiration date for the test kit is. It should be a 18 months to a couple years out. It was around $45 I saw today at the big box pet supply store and on amazon was around $21 usually around $25 with free shipping with Prime.