Tiger Salamander appears really slow & possible eating problem?

Hello,

I am not sure if this is normal, but I noticed today Muffin, my tiger salamander looked really skinny. He has always been a picky eater; he refuses to eat anything live and even then he can still be picky. I have tried over 6 different kinds of foods/ bugs (worms mainly, and some shrimp pieces he used to eat when little/ larvae which he seems to like), and I notice that he moves very slowly and kind of... out of it, I guess you could say? He usually always comes out when he sees me and follows me around, and I worry sometimes because he doesn't act or walk like most of the salamanders do on the videos I have seen. If anything he walks more like a turtle; really slow, kind of bulky, clumsy, wobbly, heavy. I was wondering if he could be suffering from malnutrition? If so, I have no idea what to feed him since I often see him in his food area, but I don't think he is really... eating. He burrows sometimes, but usually I see him walking about following me or staring, usually covered with dirt. I never really noticed how skinny he looked until I caught him in his little pool today. I just worry if maybe his clumsiness and slowness could be related to lack of food, and that he isn't getting the proper nutrients? Or if there is something else to try and give him? I don't know what to do, most of the videos I have seen, the salamanders eat live bugs and walk around chasing them. Muffin can care less, and often will wait until the things die before he eats them, and sometimes he will even ignore the fact that they are there. I don't know if theres something wrong, if he's lazy, if he's spoiled... when I got him he looked malnourished as a larvae, he plumped right up after the first week, and since he's metamorphosed, he doesn't seem to have that appetite he used to any more. He would take food right from my hands and wait; sometimes he will still do that, other times he refuses.

Any ideas on what I could do?

I just worry. The only thing that seems to draw him to eat are the shrimp bits that I had when he was little; but I know he can't live off that, I don't even know if I should be giving him that. The little bits are also super messy. It seems like the only thing he will eat, so I try to mix it in with the worms and what not. I tried all types of worms, haven't tried crickets yet (I hear they aren't good for salamanders?), otherwise I am at an end. I am constantly throwing food away because he will let it sit there, often the things die and I don't want him eating old food or something that has been sitting around. I am constantly cleaning his tank, change his pool water daily, make sure his soil is all moist and fresh, make sure he has food, etc.

Other than his slowness and eating problem, I don't see any sores or signs of bacterial infections. I tried to look at care sheets and articles and found most of them relating to infections of some sort, but he shows none of the symptoms of them, no swelling, discoloration, none of that.

I figured I would ask on here and see if anybody has had anything similar, if this is normal, and if not what I could do to help him. I love my little guy, he's my best friend (might sound weird), but hes there watching every morning, he waddles on over to see me, and will sit there right beside me through out the day, he's my little buddy. I just want to make sure if there's something up, I can fix it for him, or try something that could perhaps work. Unless that is just how he is? I honestly have no idea what to think. I'm just worried now.

Thank you for reading. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is he kept on his own or with any others? Pictures would be a great help for us if you can take any. You could drop some insects in there for him overnight and see what it's like in the morning. Also what is the temperature like over there? It's possible he could be stressed if its a little warm.

Throw some earthworms in to 'free-range' in the tank. My tiger tank always has a couple of worms in it.

Crickets are fine, just not as a staple. They're much better if dusted with vitamin and calcium supplements first. If he'll eat, feed him anything he'll take until he gets a little bigger, then worry about nutrition.

Tigers are generally slow moving animals except when lunging for prey. Crickets are a reasonable food for tigers. If they are fed mostly as a main diet however, they need to be dusted with vitamin/calcium powder and gut loaded. I've had some tigers that wouldn't eat worms and lived to be into double digits fed on crickets as a main diet. Tigers are attracted to prey through its movement...I'm suprised yours eats dead prey. Your tiger has looked thin since it metamorphosed in October. I would try crickets and wax worms.

You state that you are 'constantly' cleaning his tank. Depending on your setup, changing substrate every 2 months or less frequently depending on the ecosystem is more than adequate. Constantly disturbing his environment can be stressful for the animal.

What type of setup are you using and what do you have for a substrate? In the pictures you posted from October post metamorphose,,,, this is not the ideal setup and appears to lack adequate ventilation. Take a look at this article for care: Caudata Culture Articles - Tiger Salamander 101

His setup has been long redone since the last time I posted and took the recommendations; ecoearth, water area, food dish, hiding spots and plants. He has a log area to hide in, plants to make him feel more at home and some rocks that he often sits on. The first one is probably from the time he first metamorphosed; and refused to go on land, the one with the water and rocks.

I have tried everything because when I first got him, I was told he wan an axolotl and had all my research done for an axolotl only to find out he wasn't one. I needed to do immediate research and thankfully found in in this forum the steps to take for his metamorphosis, in which many members of this community helped me out. From the day I got him he stayed a larvae for about 3 weeks and within 2-3 days, he completely metamorphosed just like that while I was away at college.

When I say clean, I mean make sure his water isn't dirty, I pick up stray food or worms that wander off/ die that are in the soil, make sure theres nothing there rotting that could be harmful. His shrimp bits go bad really fast, so I make sure to clean those up so they don't fester and grow mold. Just little things like that. Make sure that the ecoearth is moist. I'm not changing the environment really. Just cleaning up and maintaining. I was told to mist the tank 1-2 times a day, which I always do.

The temperature I believe is fine; 60-70 degrees? usually in-between at about 65.

He lives alone, 10 gallon, eco earth substrate, has a mini log house to hide in, I bought him one of those mini rock pools from petsmart for reptiles/ amphibians, a few plants, a leaf shaped food dish and have some rocks scattered that he climbs on.

I'm going out today to try some of the other users recommendations for live prey and see if maybe that could work.

I don't know if it's from when he was little, but he never used to eat food on his own. He used to swim up to the surface and wait with his mouth opened, and I would hand feed him. I'm not sure if that would still mean anything now that he's older and if he could still expect that? My frog was the same way. He wouldn't eat live bugs either and would expect you to feed him what he wanted which were pellets. Although I know if something squirms on Muffin he will eat it; I saw him once with a worm on his feet, he freaked out and eventually ate it. Otherwise, he leaves them be.

I can upload some newer photos later of his set up and how he looks now.

Thank you everyone for your help! Very much appreciated.


EDIT:

Thank you Jan so much for suggesting wax worms, it seems like instantly he came out and began to eat them. How many should I give him and how often should I feed him?

Kms124 said:

Thank you Jan so much for suggesting wax worms, it seems like instantly he came out and began to eat them. How many should I give him and how often should I feed him?

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If he is still as thin as he was in the photos from late October, I would feed as many as he would eat in 10-15 minutes and feed daily/every other day until he puts on some weight. This may stimulate his feeding response for other invertebrates. If this is all he will eat for now, may want to dust with a vitamin and calcium supplement if he will accept dusted waxworms. These are generally reserved as a treat for a healthy weight animal as they are a little high in fat content. Most tigers find them irrestible and your fellow needs some bulk. Here are a couple of articles on foods you may find of interest:

Caudata Culture Articles - Nutritional Values

Caudata Culture Articles - Food Items for Captive Caudates

Thank you so much, Jan!

It seems like these are the only worms he will eat as of now. He dosn't look as skinny as he did in the past, but I still worry because after seeing some photos from other users, I know that he needs to get up to a healthier weight.

I have tried the blood worms, earth worms, and there was another type of worm, i think meal? He didn't like any of them. So thank you also for the lists, I will try out different foods and work more on his nutrition.

Would it still be ok to include the shrimp bits he likes, or should I just stick to the worms? When he becomes a more healthy weight, should I switch to another type? I don't want to over feed him either, he often will sit and sleep in his food dish, and I don't know if I should put something there in case he feels hungry still? I can't tell if he's there looking for food (since I figured he would rather eat the worms from the dirt than in a dish, but when I gave the worms he followed me to the food dish). Is there a point when I can tell what is a healthy weight for him? He is still kind of small.

Either way, thank you very much! Is there a particular dust you recommend or brand for the vitamins? I didn't see any at our pet store, so if worse case I would order online.

Kms124 said:

....Is there a particular dust you recommend or brand for the vitamins? I didn't see any at our pet store, so if worse case I would order online.

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I use a 1:1 mix of Rep-Cal Calcium with Vitamin D3 ultra fine and Rep-Cal Herptivite multivitamin....several others on the forum use this mix as well. There is a current discussion on supplementation in this thread:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...mander-help/81543-vulgaris-ca-deficiency.html

Jan said:

I use a 1:1 mix of Rep-Cal Calcium with Vitamin D3 ultra fine and Rep-Cal Herptivite multivitamin....several others on the forum use this mix as well. There is a current discussion on supplementation in this thread:
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...mander-help/81543-vulgaris-ca-deficiency.html

Click to expand...

There can be issues with supplements. In general, you want to purchase the freshest supplement as possible and replace it after six months. The reason you want to replace it is because the supplements are in a powder form and they begin to oxidize immediately. Then if you keep them in or near the enclosures the increased humidity can cause a more rapid oxidation. This means that you can't go by the expiration date on the container. (And since supplements like this are not regulated, the expiration date is guess work at best).

Rep-cal and Herptivite are well established supplements but there are other newer options out there as well. A number of caudates as well as anurans are known to uptake and store carotenoids (example the ventral coloration of Cynops are a combination of carotenoids from the diet and pterins synthesized by the newt). Rep-cal and Herptivite do not supply the proper range of carotenoids for proper coloration. At least in anurans, beta carotene is not a good source of vitamin A, as it appears to either not be converted or is very poorly converted which has resulted in documentation in a wide variety of anurans, hypovitaminosis of vitamin A. There are alternate pathways for the formation of vitamin A in tadpoles and adult anurans and these are probably the same in caudates. In these cases, the amphibian can convert other carotenoids such as astaxanthin (forms vitamin A2), lutein and potentially several other carotenoids.
There are several routes to supply these carotenoids, you can feed crustaceans (like Cyclopeeze brand materials) which are known to contain some of them (such as small shrimp (the reason shrimp, crabs and lobsters chitin changes color when cooked is due to the astaxanthin seperating from the binding color), or fish that contain them (salmon (the red color in wild salmon is from astaxanthin and a much smaller amount of canthaxanthin), or supply them in a supplement such as the Repashy supplements or supplement with the carotenoids directly (like astaxanthin from Naturerose).

Some long winded comments,

Ed

With the good levels of minerals in our well water, I feel pretty good about the calcium intake of my little critters. I'll mist their habitats with some distilled water (simply because it doesn't leave so many hard water stains on the glass!). Our well water is pretty close to the normal mineral traces found in the water out in the environment here, but has less contaminants. I give a small dose of the Herptivite to both my 4 frogs and my A. tigrinum once a month, just to give them a boost. I try to 'gut-load' my A. tigrinum's worms with a varied diet, similar to what they'd have in the wild (mulched leaves, clean salad greens, etc.)

My A. tigrinum seems to really get excited if I make sure the worms touch her chin and jaw. I've used the same method of stimulation to get other salamanders and newts to feed elsewhere. Sometimes even playing a little 'tug of war' and giving a little resistance when they get a hold of the worm seems to get them going too. I think it's mostly up to experimenting to see what stimulates their hunting behaviors the most.

Ed said:

There can be issues with supplements. In general, you want to purchase the freshest supplement as possible and replace it after six months. The reason you want to replace it is because the supplements are in a powder form and they begin to oxidize immediately. Then if you keep them in or near the enclosures the increased humidity can cause a more rapid oxidation. This means that you can't go by the expiration date on the container. (And since supplements like this are not regulated, the expiration date is guess work at best).

Rep-cal and Herptivite are well established supplements but there are other newer options out there as well. A number of caudates as well as anurans are known to uptake and store carotenoids (example the ventral coloration of Cynops are a combination of carotenoids from the diet and pterins synthesized by the newt). Rep-cal and Herptivite do not supply the proper range of carotenoids for proper coloration. At least in anurans, beta carotene is not a good source of vitamin A, as it appears to either not be converted or is very poorly converted which has resulted in documentation in a wide variety of anurans, hypovitaminosis of vitamin A. There are alternate pathways for the formation of vitamin A in tadpoles and adult anurans and these are probably the same in caudates. In these cases, the amphibian can convert other carotenoids such as astaxanthin (forms vitamin A2), lutein and potentially several other carotenoids.
There are several routes to supply these carotenoids, you can feed crustaceans (like Cyclopeeze brand materials) which are known to contain some of them (such as small shrimp (the reason shrimp, crabs and lobsters chitin changes color when cooked is due to the astaxanthin seperating from the binding color), or fish that contain them (salmon (the red color in wild salmon is from astaxanthin and a much smaller amount of canthaxanthin), or supply them in a supplement such as the Repashy supplements or supplement with the carotenoids directly (like astaxanthin from Naturerose).

Some long winded comments,

Ed

Click to expand...

And this brings us back to the best rule of thumb - feed a variety of prey for a varied diet.

I agree that supplementation is tricky. For caudates, there just doesn't appear to be sound scientific-based recommendations. In some species of frogs and toads, hypovitaminosis A has resulted in squamous metaplasia of the mucus glands of the tongue - 'short tongue syndrome'. On the other hand, hypervitaminosis A may interfere with normal metabolism of vitamin D and contribute to metabolic bone disease. In tiger sals, are carotenoids and coloration really a consideration? And a big unknown is that it may be likely that there are species-specific dietary needs for vitamin A. Can we really extrapolate metabolic data from one species of amphibian to another with any degree of certainty? That's a big leap of faith.

So how much, how often and what type of supplemention for caudates remains ill-defined.

For years we have been under the impression that vitamin/mineral supplementation for humans was beneficial. New data now suggest that benefit is limited and may in fact be harmful. Recommendations....eat a well balanced diet unless treating specifically for a deficiency.

Long winded comments as well........

Ed and Jan, thank you for the great info for me to mull over today! Kristina, how's the tiger doing?

Jan said:

And this brings us back to the best rule of thumb - feed a variety of prey for a varied diet.

I agree that supplementation is tricky. For caudates, there just doesn't appear to be sound scientific-based recommendations. In some species of frogs and toads, hypovitaminosis A has resulted in squamous metaplasia of the mucus glands of the tongue - 'short tongue syndrome'. On the other hand, hypervitaminosis A may interfere with normal metabolism of vitamin D and contribute to metabolic bone disease. In tiger sals, are carotenoids and coloration really a consideration? And a big unknown is that it may be likely that there are species-specific dietary needs for vitamin A. Can we really extrapolate metabolic data from one species of amphibian to another with any degree of certainty? That's a big leap of faith.

So how much, how often and what type of supplemention for caudates remains ill-defined.

For years we have been under the impression that vitamin/mineral supplementation for humans was beneficial. New data now suggest that benefit is limited and may in fact be harmful. Recommendations....eat a well balanced diet unless treating specifically for a deficiency.

Long winded comments as well........

Click to expand...

Hi Jan,

At this time, vitamin A metabolism in the form of retinoids have been shown to be highly conserved across taxa and all fall into the ranges determined through the diet studies on domesticated animals quite awhile back. This is actually the basis on the requirements on which all diet supplements for amphibians and reptiles were based... At this time, there is no data to indicate caudates do not fall into those ranges and in fact the recent literature describes vitamin A deficiencies to be widespread in all captive amphibians (see for example,

Wright KM. 2006. Overview of amphibian medicine. In: Mader DR, ed. Reptile Medicine and Surgery. 2nd ed. St. Louis: Saunders, Elsevier. p. 941-971​

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When you dig far back into the literature on carotenoids and amphibians one of the interesting issues is that astaxanthin is actually converted to vitamin A2 by larval amphibians. They utilize other carotenoids as precursors for retinol (such as lutien). The problem with many supplements is that they only use beta carotene which is a direct result of one person in the early 1990s (I think offhand 1992 ) and passed around on the net, that the vitamin A in the form of retinyl palmiatate was killing captive chameleons. This went viral and people stopped buying those supplements so the manufacturers went straight to beta carotene (which is also why we see or hear of so few reports anymore of oversupplmentation of vitamin A).

Some more longwinded comments,

Ed