Abscess on Paddle Tail Newt

Hi all

I recently got my self 2 paddle tail newts, had them for over a month now and they were doing fine, but in the last week or so (after moving them into a larger tank) their appetites and feeding response went down, and then this morning I woke up to find the one (which I suspected to be the female dead) and the male has a large abscess on his right front arm. It is open at the moment and he is unable to use the limb.

We have had a heat wave at the moment and I am fighting to keep the temps below 23 degrees celcius. The tank is a standard 2 foot with fine playpen sand which has been thoroughly washed, live plants and two hides. A snail has inhabited the tank with them and recently introduced some fish - guppies and a siamese fighter.

Below are the pics I took this morning, I am in the process of replacing water, so please any info on how I can treat this and what it is that could have caused the death of the other one and the cause of this abscess would be greatly appreciated.

Did the dead one have any signs of injury? One possibility is that they got in a fight; one was killed and the other injured. From the location of the abcess, it appears possible that the other newt grabbed him by the leg and twisted. Paddletails are quite capable of injuring or killing each other.

Another possibility is that there are water quality problems in the new tank. If you don't have any test kits, perhaps you have a pet shop locally that will test the water for you.

I can't really help with regard to the abcess, but the fish in the tank won't be helping matters - they are tropical, which require a higher temperature (24 - 30 degrees C). If they aren't suffering from being too cold, then your paddletail is too warm. Their presence might be stressing him too, or fouling the water.
You might have already done this, but a trick I use in hot weather is to keep the curtains mostly closed in the newt room, just open enough to let a bit of light in, and have the window open as long as I am in the house. Try pointing a fan at the tank too, this can really help.

Yes, I suspected straight away that there was a fight and the abscess is a result of this. I keep a fan on the cage and rotate bottles of frozen water to lower the temps, which vary between 21 - 24 degrees Celcius at the moment - the temps will not get any lower than this.

So basics first, I am going to remove the fish from the tank. The water is not an issue I think, because it is the same water used on my axolotls, but I will replace water. Do I continue to feed the newt, how do I treat him?

Okay, so I have moved the newt into a smaller (tall) critter keeper with a pump, a hide, and some plastic plants. It is a very simple set-up but the point is to keep it clean and monitor him better. The water is between 18-23 degrees Celsius (from night to day temps respectively) and is will be cleaned after each feeding.

After a few days, I can now see that it is in fact a bite mark as their is a 'chunk' taken out of his limb at the joint (what would be the armpit I guess).

What can I do to treat the wound?

I have only ever attempted to treat an amphibian illness once, and it wasn't successful, so I can't really advise you on this matter, except to post a link to this article: Caudata Culture Articles - Illness Part 1

Unfortunately the newt passed away as a result of the injuries. The wound was a lot worse than I originally thought. It was an important lesson learnt about housing aggressively animals together, unfortunately it was at the expense of 2 lives.

Don't beat yourself up - it happens to the best of us. Some of my pets have died, either through accident or conditions they already had when I got them.
Things like this do happen, take it as a learning experience