Newt still Ill? What do you think?

Hi everyone, as you may know, I posted here a few days ago about my Newts, and then noticed that the site had been hacked.

Well, I came in again today and found the Newt limp on the floor again, limp. So I got him promptly out of the tank and set him on a wet napkin. He is not breathing again; no pulsating of his throat or mouth.

He had done this about a week and a half ago, I found him limp on the ground in the tank. He sat for three hours not breathing, limp. He then seemed to start breathing on his own again and start moving! Something has been happening every two days since that requires him to be taken out of the water, irratic swimming sometimes and some floating. One minute he seems to be perfectly normal-going up for air regularly, walking around and swimming normally-but then he could appear to be dying, but then be fine. Water tests showed the water to be safe except for nitrites, which were high, so we put water conditioner in. The levels are still high even now.

I do not think this is the cause of this, because the smaller Newt seems to be OK.

He has been slightly moving now, almost like pulling in some air! We are keeping an eye on him definitely.

It does not seem as though he has bloat, unless these are symptoms of it?

Any input will again be appreciated greatly!

Thanks,
Brandon

They will only pulsate when they feel comfortable. If they see a predator come up to them (or perceive their keeper as a predator), they will freeze and not breathe through their buccal membranes (that's why the throat pulsates).

Nitrites can burn a newt, and will stress them out. Water conditioner won't lessen the danger of ammonia and nitrites. You need to cycle a tank to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down. Read http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml for more information about cycling.

I'll repeat the same advice I did before: give your newts a SOLID island area (not floating), and keep the newt in a tub with damp paper towels. It's not bloat, but I have no idea why it would nearly drown like that - twice now. I can't remember if you said it was eating or not.

Some water conditioners claim to de-activate ammonia, but that is just a quick-fix, not a real solution to the problem. You need to be doing large water changes until the nitrite comes down. Read the article Joan linked.

Thanks for the responses everyone. He does have a solid place that does not move to get up on, and it seemed that he has gotten up on it pretty easily before. The water conditioner we put in is a bacterial starter for cycling, so that should be helping to rid the water of the nitrites.

We did keep the Newt on damp paper towels in a small tub. Unfortunately he became bloated and has now died. I am at a loss to explain what has been happening to him.

Water tests never showed ammonia to be a problem, but nitrites were always high no matter what we did. I will keep changing the water partially and will still keep checking it.

Thanks for all the help.