FB newt lost a foot

I got a small fb newt.At first it looked the his toe was broken, but now 20 days or so later his whole foot is gone.He seems fine and is acting normal.Is this anything to get conserned about?

I will concern about it. How thin is it? What kind of food has it been eating? How does it habitat look like?

He is quite fat, i give him blood worms and those newt bites, not sure if he is eating them or not.What do you mean by (how does it habitat look like)?

(Message edited by newt_guy on April 19, 2006)

[Alison Brown]

A missing foot is ALOT to be concerned about. If your foot fell off, wouldn't you hope someone would care? Newt_guy, be concerned!

Your newt probably has rot. This usually comes from improper care: dirty/bad water quality or an injury. It's unlikely that he would have sustained an injury unless he's been housed with another species.

Here are some more specific questions to help you with answering Ian's simple question of "What does his habitat look like?":
How big is the tank?
How many newts do you have in the tank?
Do you have filtration? What kind?
How deep is the water?
What land areas have you provided?
What plants do you have provided?
Are your plants decaying and not being removed, thus making the water quality bad?
How much and how often are you feeding it? If you aren't removing uneaten food, that's a likely culprit to your problem.
If you can't see uneaten food because it's buried in gravel, then you need to get a feeding dish and put the food there.
If your newt is eating the bloodworms, then don't bother with the newt bites because he's probably not eating them.

Does this make sense to you?

It is a 10gal. tank,it is just the one newt in the tank,i have a elite mini underwater filter, the water is about 4" deep, i piled gravel so that he could get most of his body out of the water(so he doesn't dry out), the plants are all plastic, i feed him every morning.

[Tim Johnson]

Don't be concerned! Newts, like many other amphibians have a regeneration cell. Your newt's leg will grow back.

I would just try to keep things clean as possible and with the least amount of stress. If you can get good live plants and keep them growing that would be great also. Watch whats left of his leg to be sure it does not get worse. As mentioned it should regrow eventually.

It will regrow, but make sure it is not roting and get worse. I think feeding everymorning might not be that good. Possibly leaving too many waste behind. HOw often do you do water change?

[Alison Brown]

Tim Wright, I completely disagree with you. Yes, okay, so newts have regeneration. But the leg didn't randomly fall of for no reason. If you can't fix the problem that caused the foot to fall off in the first place, then the conditions will not be good enough for the leg to regrow.

newt-guy, your newts leg will not grow back and be healthy until the problem is fixed.

I don't know anything about the filter you have, but a "mini" might be too small for a ten gallon tank (anyone else have any thoughts on this?)

Feeding every morning is excessive and is surely leaving behind wastes that are ruining your water quality.

Piling rocks up is an easy way to provide land, but it's just deeper gravel that allows uneaten food and waste to get deeper in the gravel making it even more of a mess to clean up. I would recommend getting a larger rock or some nice live plants (or both would be great!) for your newt to climb out on. I would also recommend a feeding dish.

Your newt only needs to be fed every two or three days at the most.

It will be fine if the newt gets dry. Many of these newts live terrestrially at stages of their life. However, if your newt thinks the water is bad, he won't want to go back in. I have a large rock in my c.o. tank that the water just barely covers so that she can get up on the rock to rest and be "out" of the water, but it still stays a little wet.

Summary?
- You can't feed that often and have gravel that deep. Doing either on it's own is bad as well.
- Get a feeding dish so you can monitor leftovers.
- If you get something better to provide a land area, you could also raise the water level a bit.
- I'm not sure about that filter.

Anyway, don't expect that if your newt is sick it will simply get better. Newts have the wonderful capability of regeneration, but they have to have proper conditions before that will work. It's like if you break your leg...sure, it will heal. But don't you think it would be a good idea to see a doctor about it?

my fb newt has the same problem with its foot. first it was missing a toe then all toes now it's half a front leg. It also has open sores on its face and it has spread to the other newts as well, but theirs is not nearly a severe, it is mainly sores on their body. I tried a water treatment for fin and mouth rot and although it is still early, I think it is working.