Newt Swimming Frantically

[OliLuna]

I purchased a Spanish Ribbed Newt from my local petstore at the Reptile Expo we had last weekend. I have Newton in a 10 gallon tank, with sand and a turtle dock and cave. He was doing really well in the beginning, he would hang out at the dock a lot but I read that was normal. I couldn't get him to eat at first, I tried mealwo, crawlers, redworms ; he wouldn't eat it until I got him live blood worms. He went crazy for those and would go around his tank until he found them. Within three days I also noticed his eye had went cloudy. I don't know what that would mean.

Just two days ago he's been starting to swim frantically, almost spasming. He would even end up on his back for a few seconds and just stay like that. The first day I noticed it he was just floating in the middle of the water, he looked dead. He usually holds onto something but he was just floating in the middle of the tank and the top. Now he's been spasming and I don't know what that would me or what I could do. I believe he also threw up the first day he started acting like that after he ate his blood worms. Is it possible the worms went bad already and are making him sick? I would appreciate any advice, I'm new to newts as well. Thank you.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I would remove your newt from tank and put him in clean, de-chlorinated water. Get your current tank water tested as I suspect there will be something up with the water quality.

Caudata Culture Articles - Water Quality

Caudata Culture Articles - Cycling

 

[OliLuna]

I also recently added bamboo in the tank since that's the only plant I've had that does fine without light. Could that be affecting him?

 

[Otterwoman]

Maybe something in the plant's dirt?

 

[OliLuna]

I thoroughly rinsed the sand when I got it and I clean up all his leftovers. I spoke with an employee from where I purchased him and she said it could be an eye infection that lead to the brain. She also told me that the other employees mistook his food with blood worms and they're actually tubifex worms. I learned I had to wash them every other day so I was basically feeding him **** to begin with as I was misinformed.

She suggested that I do 20% water changes every other day with spring water until all of his tank was spring water. I haven't seen any improvement but he's still eating. He just looks like he spasms really bad now. I'm not too sure on how much time I should give to see when he should be improving. Is there anything else I can even do?

 

[Otterwoman]

I don't know of anything you could do, except wait and see, unless you can bring him to the vet.