Swollen arm.. help!!!

My newts right arm is a little swollen (1 1/2 normal size). In between where it connects to his body and his elbow. I also noticed his fingers (same arm) at the tips looked see through (does this happen with shedding? not sure if the 2 are related)

I got really busy recently (I know thats no excuse) and waited much longer than I should have to clean his water so I imagine this is what caused it.

Yesterday he was acting like it was bothering him and when he walked around in the water he wasn't using it much.
Today he seems better about it.
I gave him a salt bath last night and today for 15 minutes.
(using only a small pinch to about a cup or two of water)

I did pray for him so I know that helped but I want to do everything I can to help him.

He is still active and eating normally.
Doesn't share his space with anything else.

What causes limb rot? Is this the same as a bacterial infection?

I got some Maroxy today but I can't afford a filter until a couple weeks. I've had him in a non filtered habitat for at least 4 years and this is the first time he's had anything wrong with him.

Are salt baths for healing? I noticed someone talked about keeping a small amount of dissolved non-iodine salt in the tank. Is this a good idea since this is also the water they drink? Also, how much salt do I put in the salt bath???

Thanks for your help!

Details about using salt baths can be found here:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/salt.shtml

Is there any evidence of injury, besides the swelling? If the problem is strictly internal, then it is not limb rot and probably not bacterial. But I'm at a loss for ideas of what it could be.

Do what you can to reduce stress for the newt, and it may heal on its own. Cold temperature is beneficial to healing.

One other thing that might help, both in diagnosis and in recommendations for care... what kind of newt is it?

He is a Chinese Fire-belly.

It is possible that he climbed up into his lid and then fell from there. I've seen him do that before. He is pretty active so it's possible that he hurt himself.

How exactly do you disinfect the housing?

I put a little less than 1/4 capful of the Maroxy into 4 gals of water. I will keep adding this amount over 5 days? Is that correct? Or should I stop??? and only do salt baths?

I so feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Help!

It's hard to see because they are so small.

I used a magnifying glass and could see that his whole arm is swollen and it seems the skin is shedding or rotting.

How can I take a photo of this little man? I have a standard digital 5mp cam. will that work?

you can try with your macro settings on your camera

I noticed today that the clearness on the tips of his fingers was him shedding because I found the skin glove in his tank. I'm now seeing some hanging off the arm that is messed up.

Maybe, a piece of the shedding got stuck and caused his arm to swell.

Any thoughts on that?

The only time I've seen newts get "stuck" while shedding was when some of my juveniles were sick/dieing. I've seen various shedding problems, but they are usually secondary to other problems, not the source of problems. But I suppose it's possible.

Does the arm look any better now?

If your camera has a macro mode, it's usually labeled with a flower symbol.

I tried to post the images but it gives me this error:
Not Acceptable: An appropriate representation of the requested resource could not be found on this server.

Why is it doing that?


He just shed and ate his skin last night.
I'm on the 3rd day of putting Maroxy in his tank.
I put it in his regular tank.
Should I do a full water change after the 5th day of medication?

I gave him a salt bath 3 times now. I used sea salt (as recommended) but I noticed there is a trace of natural iodine .002% is that alright?

Thanks for your help.

As for the uploading of pictures, did you use the "upload attachment" button for it?

I don't really know for sure if 0.002% of iodine is going to harm a newt.

The image upload will fail if the file size is too big. See "Help/Instructions".

I wouldn't worry about the trace of iodine.

I have no idea what to say about Maroxy, I never used it.

Here's the photo....
His right arm is bigger than the other...
I took it yesterday.

His arm is shedding again..

this time I can see black on the edges of it near the top of his arm where it seems the most messed up =(

Should I use another medication?

The leg does look mangled. If the newt is otherwise healthy, then amputation would be a good bet, but I would highly recommend a vet for that. Barring that, I'd say keep the newt in something that will prevent infection, and hope that it's own healing ability will get it through. I'm no expert on what product you should use, it would depend on what you have available locally.