Is my newt sick?

As I left the house this morning I glanced over at my newt tank (2 chinese fire belly newts, 10 gallons). One was awake and crawling around, the other was pressed up against the tank (side and bottom (not uncommon) and looked like she had bubbles or white spots on her (hard to tell). I thought she was dead, but then she must have heard me and took a few steps and disappeared into the plants.

I have never seen my newt look this color before--it was sort of whitish gray on the tail and the skin. Do they get paler at night? It could have been bubbles I guess, the newt disappeared before I could get a good look and unfortunately I had to head off to work. The other looks the same as usual. Both eat bloodworms every 2-3 days. I can't see anything physically wrong besides the color. Their tank is cleaned weekly with as close to a 100% water change as I can get. Lots of plants, 70-30 water to land (they never go on the land).probably about 4 gallons total in the tank. Has a fluval 1+ filter.

Anyone seen this before, am I being paranoid? Or is something the matter?

Thanks for any information,
Jackie

1.) the bubbles could be due to her being on land, and then jumping into the water. This happens to one of my newts all the time. It's like her own private decoration.

2.) they can get paler at night. I've noticed that my crested newts especially will get pale when it's dark. One gets almost white. If you're noticing white stripes down the sides of the tail, it might be breeding coloration.

3.) You shouldn't do 100% water changes. You want to cycle the tank. I'd also increase the water levels, especially if they don't use the land. Reduce the land to a small island or some floating plants, and increase the water to about 6 inches. Read an article on cycling here: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml

My last post disappeared. . .

The tank is cycled, it has been up and running for a year or so. To be more precise, I change out about 3.5 out of 4 gallons. I have several small tanks and change out at least 75% of the water every week in all of them. I find it very helpful in small tanks to do large water changes and find as long as you do them every week the fish/newts/toads have no problems.

Good to know I just may have disturbed it's slumber, not unlike tetras in the morning. Perhaps my newt just needed its morning cup of coffee!!

Will check this evening.

Jackie

I would only recommend changing 25-50% every two weeks at most. By changing so much, you're losing much of the beneficial bacteria that helps keep the tank in order.

Sorry, but frequent water changes do not disturb the beneficial bacteria. The bacteria live mostly in the filter media and some in the substrate. Now, if you change the filter, you lose the bacteria, or if you rinse it in untreated tap water, you will lose the bacteria. But just changing water will not. You really cannot change too much water, unless you change it all at once after not changing it for months on end. The best thing you can do for your aquatic creatures (newts, fish etc.) is to change water. It's especially important in smaller tanks, where waste builds up very quickly because of the limited space.

As far as reducing the land portion, I have been considering that. I've had them about a year and I have seen them rest on the land maybe 2 or 3 times. I just don't want them to suddenly decide that they want more land and there's none available. I have the anachris floating, the tank has a sort of swamp jungle look and the newts love (I think they do, anyway) crawling around looking prehistoricand hiding between the plants. I'm also thinking of upgrading to a 20L tank and adding a few friends. I think I have a picture of the tank, when I get home I'll post a link.

Jackie

Actually, about water change. I dont agree on either one. Frequent water change is good. but not to be too frequent. I think also about the stress level and the change of water quality. Unless I can garantee that the water I changed is exactly the same (temp, saltlinity, ph...etc). Changing 75% might be a big shock to the animals.

I usually do 50% water change each week.

So I go home and both newts look at me like I am crazy. They are fine. The lights had just come on and I guess the one was pale.

There is so much debate on water changes. My newts appreciate the clean water every week, as do my other fish tanks. Water changes can only help maintain a good environment for your animals. The smaller the tank, the more important water changes are. I have never had disease in any of my tanks and contribute it largely to water changes.

jackie

There is no way to say if newts 'appreciate' 75% water changes. That's placing human emotions on inhuman creatures, anthropomorphic thought.

Changing 75% of the water is unneccessary. It just does not need to be done. If you have a cycled tank and lots of plants, you probably don't even NEED to do water changes. Have you ever checked the levels of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate in your tank? The only reason for water changes is because these levels get too high.

After your tank is cycled, specifically nitrate gets too high. If you have lots of plants, nitrate will be used as a food source by the plants. Then you have absolutely no need to do any water changes.

Jackie, you are correct in that there is much debate on water changes. I would have to say that I agree with Joan, but if you aren't having problems, then I suppose there's nothing we can say to you!

Joan, I was wondering what you normally use for substrate, and how often you clean that. When I do a "water change" I mean that I also clean the gravel using a gravel vacuum. I do this about once every three weeks, changing about 50% of the water each time (for if I take out less water, I can't clean the gravel enough since this is only a ten gallon tank). Do you think this is excessive? I have two ghost shrimp which I often see eating up newt poop (hehe), but I do see lots of stuff down in the gravel. How often do you think I should be cleaning the gravel?
Also, my young taricha with the leg sore is healed completely! YEY!

I use sand or a bare bottom. I spot-clean poo almost daily, and about once a week (or two) use a siphon to vacuum the sand. The smaller the tank, the more frequent water changes it will need, unless it's heavily planted. If you think your gravel is dirty, feel free to clean it. Try using a turkey baster instead of a siphon. This will cut down on the amount of water that is taken out.

I always wondered how people cleaned sand. Does the siphon not suck the sand out? By siphon, do you mean a gravel cleaner thing that you get from the pet stores? I like the idea of sand, but always wondered how people cleaned it!

If you use the heavier filter sand, it doesn't get sucked out. I imagine the finer play-sand does, but I usually just hover OVER the sand, instead of digging into it with the siphon (same as gravel cleaner- big tube with a smaller hose on the end). Sand's easier to keep clean than gravel because all the poo sits on top instead of getting between all the little gravelly bits.

Good to hear that your little Taricha's all healed. Congrats!

Thanks Joan, that's interesting information. Maybe I'll redo a tank with sand sometime. Not now though, as things are going so well. Thanks for the info!

Joan,

One reason I have to do water changes is to vacuum. I don't use sand and I get a lot of gunk in my gravel. It generally takes a good 2 gallons of water in my vacuum to clean the tank to an acceptable level (not spotless, but reaonably clean). Now gunk is good to a certain extent, the plants use it, but if I leave it more than 10 days it doesn't look good to me. If I used sand and did a spot poo clean then I would probably do 50% water change once a week. Why? Because you can't have too fresh of water. In the wild most animals (fish, amphibs, etc.) live in much more water than we provide. That's why we filter our water, to do what nature provides naturally. Nature also provides a source of incoming fresh water, whether it be by rain or perhaps a natural spring from a lake, by a constantly moving river, or by sheer volume. By whatever means, the water is constantly changing, the old is evaporating and being replaced by new. So I change water.

Now I am relatively new to newts I admit, but I have kept freshwater fish for a number of years. Most people would agree that more water changes the better in fish keeping for those very reasons. I have applied that reasoning to my newts, and so far it has worked for me. All I know is that all animals (me included) appreciate a clean fresh environment. In the years I've had my fish tanks, I've never had a fungus or ick outbreak, and I attribute that to religiously and borderline fanatically changing the water. Most disease in our animals can be attributed to poor water conditions. I think that it's very important for my newts to have clean water, as they are absorbing the water thru their skin.

My tanks do not have ammonia or nitrites, but I would disagree that that is the only reason to change water. Animals, fish especially since that is my experience, grow faster, get larger, develop more quickly, have more vibrant colors, and are healthier in water that has regular frequent, large water changes. Again, I am applying my reasoning to newts from fish, but it makes sense to me. And my newts are healthy, slightly plump, and eating well.

It is probably because I am also a fish keeper that I feel so strongly about water changes. I have a couple of friends who keep both fish and newts and they also do large scale water changes.

I wouldn't recommend, though, that you change less than 25% of the water a week. I think you leave yourself open to poor water quality issues. It works for you, Joan, because you take the time to remove the poo from the tank every day. I wonder how many people do that? That would remove the major source of ammonia from the tank and keep the water much cleaner.

This is what I find--when you do it less than once a week it becomes a job. You forget when you've done it last and a week becomes 2, becomes 3, becomes 4, and your fish suffer. Then you start to procrastinate, and next thing you know it's been 5 weeks and your 4 gallons of water are not looking so good and neither are your newts/fish/toad. At my house every Saturday morning the buckets and vacuums come out and I change the water. I enjoy it and it is part of my weekly routine. I also know that I am keeping my animals in the best conditions I can.

Each to his own, I guess, but I will continue to do large scale water changes.

Jackie

I think larger water changes are needed for smaller tanks. In a tank with only 4 gallons of water volume, the regimen that Minn-gal is using sounds OK to me. The only problem with it, is if she goes on vacation or gets busy and puts the water change off for more than a week, then she's subjecting the animals to an increasing shock at the next change. Water parameters (pH, etc.) gradually shift over time. If you do a huge water change at short intervals it's OK, but if it's ever neglected, it could be seriously stressful on the animals. But it does sound to me like she knows what she's doing with water quality.

My recommendation to Minn-gal, though, is that larger is better when it comes to providing a "stable home life" to any kind of aquatic animals. Having larger tanks (or larger water volumes in the same tanks) might improve the newts' lives AND make your life easier.

o.. I know there are natural water change as well in the wild. Just that what I was saying is that in the wild, there are rarely any case that a pond or lake will have a 75% water change suddenly. But just my 2 cents. I also keep fresh water fishes as well.

If I had my way, my two tarichas would have a 150 gallon all to themselves! Maybe that would be a little excessive, but cool, none the less.