Please help, possibly sick N. viridiscens viridiscens

Yes its me again... the one that was looking terribly thin is doing just peachy now, she's gained some weight and is very healthy and active thanks to the suggestion to feed earthworms as a staple diet.

Anyhow, its my male that I'm worried about now. He was wild caught and from the day we caught him, his right, back foot was always a little deformed. Rather than having four toes he has three, with the middle two fused together. I assumed that this was due to a birth defect or the previous loss of the foot. It doesn't seem to bother him and is not swollen or anything.

However, the past few days he has been extremely sluggish and unwilling to eat. Rather than exploring around like he usually does, he has been just sitting in the one area of the land space where it is puddly. He shed his skin yesterday which wasn't anything all that spectacularly weird. But today I was trying to change up the bedding in the land area and I was trying to get him to move. I poked him and prodded him gently with my finger which usually gets him to get out of my way or at least into a position where I can pick him up and move him to the water area. I noticed something very disturbing. It looks like his front fingers are missing entirely!!!!!! What in creation could this be? He only lives with a female of the same species, and a few feeder fish that escaped the fate of being eaten by the Clawed Frogs that I keep in a seperate tank. The fish ignore the newts and vice/versa. Looking at him now I am very worried. The deformed foot looks ok, but his other back leg is turned at an angle that looks painful to me... though I could just be assuming the worst because of my worry over his front feet.

Any suggestions? Courses of action? What can I do, I don't want to lose him, I'm quite attached to the lil guy.

Please help!

Thanks in advance,

Sarah

if i remember my zoology right, all newts have their legs set at a 90 degree angle to the body.

i'd say take out the fish as your first line of action. just because you dont see a behavior doesnt mean its not there. unless you sit and watch your tank 24 hours a day.

Ok... that's simple enough.... and the leg that looked like it was at a bad angle to me is actually ok. But the foot that had the malformed toes is now starting to look like its toes are disintigrating too. I'm starting to get worried here... he's got no front fingers and now the toes on one of his back feet are disintigrating or something! He has taken to being almost completely terrestrial and this is a newt who likes being in the water a lot.

Is there anything I can do for the missing/disintigrating toes????

Sarah

Ok, I just watched him try to get down into the water and I'm very concerned...its like he can't control his legs as well as he could before... he's floundering around in the water... I'm going to move him back to the land.

please help if you have any advice at all!! this is heartwrenching to watch

The fish have been removed.... I did watch as he was in the water and they WERE nipping at him.... they are some sort of livebearer... some sort of platy I think, I didn't know fish could cause such damage. The first few I put in there were really little and I figured that the newts would eat them. When they didn't eat them and seemed to be getting along, I left them in there. I guess that was a mistake.

He is now shedding again and is in the water, I guess I'll leave him in there if that's where he wants to be.

Please, some advice is really needed on treatment of the missing toes/fingers

Ok I took him back out of the water, it looked like the effort to get to the surface for air was too much work for him, I think he may have drowned if I'd left him in there. Now he's back up on the land and hiding out in the coconut house they have. (its a half coconut shell with a doorway cut into it.)

I'm very concerned now as it is obvious that movement is not easy for him and could be fatal.

Here's a picture, I know its blurry but you can tell that his toes/fingers are missing.

First off
Quarantine your animal and read this
http://www.caudata.org/caudatecentral/articles/sores.html
Also see the post
ROTTING??!! Help!!!!
from May 18, 2003
This seems to be a common problem with Nvv, i suggest digging back through the posts for others who have had such problems and who have most likely received an adequate answer. Also look on Caudate central (there is a link on the opening page of caudata.org) for information on water quality and keeping this species.
T

Thanks for the reply, but he didn't make the night.... it was all of the sudden like... just a few days ago he was just fine and dandy, then all of the sudden he had no fingers, then his toes were dissappearing. It was very fast, not sure what happened. I found him at the bottom of the water area this morning, dead. I'm assuming he drowned as he was having some tough times getting to the surface yesterday. *sigh*

I just wish there was something I could have done.

Thanks anyhow,

Sarah