Spinal deformity--seen anything like it?

This Taricha granulosa was born in captivity about 5 years ago. Maybe 2 or 3 years ago (I forget now, its been so long) he developed a curve in his back. At first I thought it was maybe broken, but he has always had full use of his legs and tail so I decided that was not the case. He has progressively gotten worse, his tail started curving around a year ago. Currently, he has recently started having trouble swimming, and now has trouble eating unless he is in a very shallow (less than half an inch) amount of water.

Has anyone ever come across anything like this before? Any ideas on what the problem might be? The only thing I've come up with is something like scoliosis, but I've not heard of that in amphibians before.

What has its diet been for the last five years?

RUSS

I have seen this type of spinal curvature in T. marmoratus who were living on a diet of mainly earth worms. Mine survived the development of the curvature but quickly lost their appetite and died in the space of 6 months.

i have had such a thing in the past-it was due to mishandling by a wall mart employee-also a taricha btw-who was so afraid of picking it up she elevated it with a pinch grip to the spine -within weeks the newt started to gain her deformaties in that region, yours however seems to have this condition through out, from here it looks as if the tail is unnaturally bent....MBD might be suspect, i have had larvae develop a condition similarly but my culpret i believe to be the filtered water i used on them robbing their growing skeletons of nutrients, since yours is a full adult, i would guess diet or genetics, is everyone else kept the same way? can you find out from the breeder if others have displayed a similar condition?

Does this newt have any "siblings"? If its siblings were raised similarly and are normal, it would indicate a genetic defect. More likely, though, I think it's MBD (metabolic bone disease). All information you can provide on diet (including during the larval/juvenile period) would be of interest to those of us doing captive breeding.

This is one of about 30, originally. I still have a number of its siblings. This is the only abnormal one. They have all been raised in identical conditions, identical diet, etc.

As larvae, I think they were originally fed brine shrimp, then some small kind of worms (blackworms?). As young metamorphs I think they were fed a mix of flightless fruit flies and crickets and worms (they weren't in my care until about 3.5 years ago). As adults they have been fed mainly bloodworms and blackworms.

It looks like very advanced scoliosis. When did the bending of the toes start?

I have no explanation why only one newt would be affected. A possibility could be that it has some genetic abnormality which blocks or reduces the absorption of the necessary vitamins (Lack of vitamin B is associated with scoliosis in tadpoles).

hows he doing?

[andrew read]

I have seen this kind of problem several times before, but there may be several very different causes producing similar symptoms.
I think that one of the commoner causes is an infection with fungi or protozoans such as Ichthyophonus.
Once damage has been done it may be difficult to completely repair it, but you should be able to prevent further damage by using antifungals based on phenoxyethanol such as Interpet's anti fungus and finrot treatment for fish.
You may have to continue treating your animal continuously for a long period of time to completely eradicate the problem, because this parasite is quite persistent.
These kinds of parasites can be carried by the livefoods that you have mentioned.
andrew