Any reason to NOT euthonize my fire belly? Will do so shortly....

Quick summary:
http://caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58164

I bought a chinese fire belly from a typicall awfull supplier. He developed an ulcur on his tail which has now cut it in half. The ulcer grew rapidly. He eats, but not often and never very much. In the course of a week he has also developed a rapid ulcer on the side of his face, it is getting larger.

The tank conditions are all good.

This afternoon his tail just split in half, the end falling off and only held on by a tiny bit of flesh and skin. I can see flesh and bone on the remaining half, he is not bleeding from it. He is able to walk but has been pretty sluggish.

Is there any reason to not put him out of his pain at this point? At the rate the ulcer on the side of his face is growing it is going to take a chunk of his face within another week and that is going to be horrific for him and me.

I have some orajel and know what I need to do. I am afraid he may be in great pain.

To complicate all of this, I just quite literally had 4 perfectly healthy and happy fire bellies dropped in my lap by a friend, I had no chance to say no, I am stuck with them. I don't want to house them with a dying newt, for fear that they may catch something.

Is it safe to wash out the tank(with dechloronated water) and house them in the same tank with the same filter if I euthonize the sick one??

Well, I did it. I was just shocked at the size of the ulcer on his face and how quickly it grew..... I thought he was otherwise somewhat healthy. I looked at the newts which were just dropped in my lap and him and he had to have half the weight any of them did, very skinny.

I put orajel on his stomach and had him in my palm. He was gone within 2 minutes. It is not as if he would know he was with me as he went, but he was . I feel sort of bad that I could not do more for him, but when I bought him he was already immaciated and poorly kept. He is swimming in heaven now .

That's a bummer. You did the right thing.

As far as the tank, I would NOT put them in the same tank without seriously disinfecting everything. If you have healthy animals, you don't want to make them sick by anything the sick animal had.

I put some liquid dish soap, a small chunk of dove hand soap bar and a little bleach in the tank. I scrubbed it and rinsed it out completely 3 times to get out any remaining chemical residue, then rinsed it out again, then wiped it. I am going to let it fully air dry for 2 and a half hours. All the cover, plastic plants etc I have in the tank, I have extra which was never in the tank. Will that be good enough-anything else I should do?

I have the 4 newts in a bowl with some dechlorinated water but I really can’t imagine storing them in that for more than a few hours.

Any thoughts?

I took the filter out completely and am going to let it fully dry for 2 or 3 days. I plan to reuse the filter but I’ll buy new filter media.