Illness/Sickness: HELP, fire belly newt damaged arm

If someone could please tell me what is happening to my little girl's arm I would be very grateful and if I can help in any way

I've tried uploading the pictures but basically her arm has shrunk and her toes are swollen and white

It may just be shedding. Just leave it be for now.

I've tried uploading another picture of her, hopefully it shows up but her face, back and tail have gone a milky colour now

Hi Togex, can you tell us what kind of housing you are keeping your newts in? If you have a picture of your tank setup that would be helpful. Have you made any recent changes to your tank?

Have you been testing your aquarium water for ammonia, nitrites and nitrate? What levels are the tests showing? Do you do regular partial water changes?

Has your newt been eating regularly, what types of food are you providing? Have there been changes in her behaviour?

Hopefully we can help you out with your newt if you can provide more information.

Thank you!

I have been testing their water, its fine, I change around 20% of it every week and it has a soft carbon filter. Carmen hasn't been eating properly but I know she eats bloodworms happily so I have left her a little lid of them to entice her to eat (in the pic) more but sadly no luck. It's normally a 70% water, 30% land based tank (30 litres) which was recommended by the shop owner (I noticed they were EXTREMELY skinny at first and put on a lot of weight within their first month by giving them a proper diet of earth worms and blood worms instead of fish food). I don't handle them a lot, only when cleaning their tank so once a week? They are also happy swimming with the filter on or off, I don't think It affects them greatly. Temp is between 19-21 Degrees (C) and they don't display any weird behaviour other than being curious all the time. Plant is artificial but safe for reptiles and amphibians (they love it).

THE OTHER NEWT IS TOTALLY FINE? (male)

The change happened right after she escaped the tank . .
I have had them for 6 months and no problems until now.

Hi Togex, thanks for the info. 30 litres is around 8 US gallons which is small for your newts. A minimum of 10 US gallons is the smallest recommended - see this link for info:

Caudata Culture - Frequently Asked Questions

Given that, I would recommend that you increase your water level to help maintain stable water quality. How do you test your water? Do you use something like the API Master Test Kit? That's good that you are doing partial water changes, but the frequency would totally depend on your test results.

I am assuming you know about cycling a tank - Caudata Culture Articles - Cycling - are your results showing your tank to be cycled? (ie. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, low nitrates). Please read the above link on cycling if you have any doubts...

That's great that they have been eating earthworms and bloodworms. They should definitely be putting on weight then. You mentioned that the newt with the 'whitish' areas escaped - was she out of the tank for any length of time? When did she escape? Is she still eating well? Sorry for all the questions but her pictured condition concerns me. I am wondering if the white is from those areas drying out when she was an escapee. I had a wee newt escape a long time ago and I can't recall whether the affected areas went white, but he did lose fingers and toes, luckily they grew back with time.

So i'm hoping that you'll make sure your water parameters are the best they can possibly be, that you can continue to get the newt to eat earthworms regularly, with a side of bloodworms occasionally, and that the whitish areas are just dead skin and will slough off and be replaced by healthy skin as the newt recovers from the great escape. Also make sure that there's no possible way she can pull that stunt again, it's amazing you found her and were able to get her back into the tank.

If it is just her skin that is affected, I would hope that there would be no lasting damage to your newt. She'll need excellent conditions in which to heal though.

I'm sure you'll get more feedback if anyone has additional or different information to share.

Take care.

CatSpit

Thanks, I'll try and put more water in or maybe upgrade my tank then!

I've been trying to get her to eat the earthworms recently but she just doesn't seem interested anymore :\

As for checking the water I do use a API test to check the water after a few hours once its been changed. It normally comes up perfect regarding nitrates, ph, Gh but the KH can be a tad low sometimes. I always make sure to filter the gravel and remove any dead food and poo from the water and their toys.

As for her little escape it was due to a tiny hole where the wires of my tank heater are at the back. It was probably just after I had fallen asleep so she was probably out for 8 hours. Waking up I had noticed she was gone and found her at the back of my bed shrivelled up looking dead. She hadn't gone hard yet so I got a clean cotton bud and wiped gently off all the dust around her and dipped her back in her tank and let her rest on her log. She revived within an hour but didn't move for quite a while. I had noticed her leg looked a little damaged as she was lying on top of it but then started moving normally the next day. A week and a few days later her arm was yellow and swollen and now she is in this state

I will try to get her to eat the earth worms again and see if i can do anything about raising the water level!

Hi i dont know if anyone told you. But you shouldn't use a heater. You can find it on this website about the temp you should keep your newts at. I try not to go over 70 degrees 21 Celsius for my newts. And some types of newts have been seen uder the ice in pounds. I dont know about fire bellys so do some research. I cycled my tank with my newts in it. I do not recommend it but they came out fine. I changed 25% of water daily in till cycled. That was a 5 gallon tank. Good luck i hope he makes it.

The colder the better, that's for sure.
Looking at these pics, I don't think it's shedding. See what happens if you make the water cooler. Good luck.

Oops, I didn't even notice the heater - as has been said, you don't want a heater in there. Make sure to cover the holes in the lid that are meant for wires - I use duct tape with the sticky side up and then I tape over that to keep it on - not pretty but it does the job.

That's a long time for your newt to have been dry so it's no wonder she's looking so rough.

Glad you're going to add some more water and look at a getting a larger tank - the more water the better to maintain your parameters. Live plants are also a good idea as they help as well.

It's good you have an API kit to test your water. I would suggest testing the water every couple of days at this point to determine if and when you need to make a partial water change. That way you'll get an accurate reading before you do the partial water change. It's great that you're keeping the tank as clean as possible, but you do need to check where your cycle is at, in terms of ammonia, nitrite and nitrates.

I hope she starts eating worms again soon, keep trying! If she won't eat them out of her dish try using blunt tweezers to let them wiggle in front of her face.

Togex said:

Thanks, I'll try and put more water in or maybe upgrade my tank then!

I've been trying to get her to eat the earthworms recently but she just doesn't seem interested anymore :\

As for checking the water I do use a API test to check the water after a few hours once its been changed. It normally comes up perfect regarding nitrates, ph, Gh but the KH can be a tad low sometimes. I always make sure to filter the gravel and remove any dead food and poo from the water and their toys.

As for her little escape it was due to a tiny hole where the wires of my tank heater are at the back. It was probably just after I had fallen asleep so she was probably out for 8 hours. Waking up I had noticed she was gone and found her at the back of my bed shrivelled up looking dead. She hadn't gone hard yet so I got a clean cotton bud and wiped gently off all the dust around her and dipped her back in her tank and let her rest on her log. She revived within an hour but didn't move for quite a while. I had noticed her leg looked a little damaged as she was lying on top of it but then started moving normally the next day. A week and a few days later her arm was yellow and swollen and now she is in this state

I will try to get her to eat the earth worms again and see if i can do anything about raising the water level!

Click to expand...

Hi,

I would strongly suggest that you get her to a vet if at all possible since she seems to be getting worse. Whether it's some kind of damage from the original escape or something resulting from the stress, veterinary examination and treatment would give her the best chance. Anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotic cover might be advisable but obviously take the advice of a vet who actually examines her.

Good luck with her.

I'm not sure what's causing the discolouration on your newt, but I would guess the parts of its body that were dried out the worst when it escaped are now just dead flesh. Newts are well known for their amazing ability to survive all kinds of trauma and regenerate damaged or missing body parts, so don't give up hope just yet.

The thing is though, to give it the best chance of recovery, you should be providing optimal living conditions and to be honest, the set up you have there needs a lot of improvements. Chinese firebellies like cold, still, weedy water and what they have there is the complete opposite. Your newts are telling you how unsuitable things are by still trying to escape, even after they've been in there for six months! Happy firebellies soon become settled after a few weeks and after that it's actually very rare for them to leave the water or try and escape.

I appreciate you were lead to believe they need all that stuff by the idiot in the shop, but the heater and power filter especially are making things really unsuitable for newts.
All they need to be happy is an aquarium that ideally contains at least ten gallons of water with as many live plants in there as possible. It's not really important what kind of plants, the pondweed looking stuff that pet shops sell in bunches is fine and will improve their lives no end. If you pull the weights off some of it and let it grow along the surface the newts will spend most of their time resting or hunting in it.

Chinese firebellies really hate water movement, so a power filter, even a small one will be doing more harm than good. With enough plants there's no real need for a filter, but the cheap, air driven sponge ones are probably the best choice for small/medium sized tanks if you do want to use one.

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate the help. I have turned off both the heater and the filter (I bought them out of paranoia that they might get too cold and incase their water got dirty quickly) and I'll be off to buy some new plants in the morning. I feel like such a terrible carer but I'll keep trying to get her to eat and hopefully there will be some improvement

Again thank you so much!!!

Re: She's eating

So for the first time in a week and a half Carmen actually came out for her usual feeding time! Her swelling has gone down A LOT, it appears to have darkened to an orange patchy surface rather than pure white and she seems to be a lot more active this morning. Her face is looking a lot better, her arm doesn't look as puffy and her toes are growing back. Couldn't get a good picture of her but I managed to get her before I gave her breakfast popping her head out from her toy. She managed to eat a whole earth worm!

I also tried phoning my local vet but they don't have any experienced exotic vets but gave me a phone number for an amphibian breeder/vet in Edinburgh. Gave them a text and I am waiting for a reply!

Again, thanks to everyone who helped! I can't thank you enough

Fantastic news that Carmen has eaten.
Many congratulations and I hope that she makes a full recovery soon.

I'm glad she made a comeback. This site is definitely full of helpful people and a wealth of useful information. Sometimes its the simple things as stated earlier that make a huge difference.

Good luck with Carmen!

Good to hear, keep us updated on how she's doing. Glad you're contacting a herp vet as well as she'll still need all the help she can get to recover!