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Illness/Sickness: Strange behavior in tiger salamander

Lilstew

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Joined
Jan 22, 2012
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Location
Delray Beach, Florida
Hi all,

I have a tiger salamander who has been in good health for 7 years and has always been very active for a salamander. For example, he digs a lot, climbs plants, swims in his pool, follows people as they pass his terrarium, etc. He gets hand fed and loves to eat. He has moved with me from warm locations to cold and back to warm again. The biggest change was the amount of time he would hibernate. When I moved back to a warm climate I had to switch from soil and a terrarium set up to those coconut husk bricks that you soak and then use because we were getting mosquito larvae in his pool and little white insects in the soil. At first he seemed less active without the plants to climb around but then he switched to burrowing. The coconut husk seems to be more irritating to him than the soil because his eyelids seem swollen and he was constantly going to the pool to remove the husk from his body. Eventually he stopped using the coconut husk and has been spending all day and night either in the pool or on the rocks surrounding the pool. He is still eating great but he is shedding multiple times a week.

Does anyone have suggestions of what I can do? I haven't noticed sores or seen insects in his enclosure. I change his water more frequently now because there is always a shed floating in it but the water has been treated and should be safe. Do you think this is a substrate issue, dietary, behavioral? I'm concerned because he isn't as active and the pool is a small portion of his enclosure so it is sad to see him laying on his rock pile. Thank you for any advice you have to offer.

Cheers, Heather
 
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