Illness/Sickness: Cloudy Eye, gravid female not able to lay eggs

I have one of my Chinese fire belly newt with a cloudy eye. It is only one eye, the left eye. And the eye look like there is something trying to peel off from the edge. So I suspect it is a cloudy eye, but it is possible to be a fungi on the eye.

The water condition should be okay. I might have an overpopulated aquarium with 25 newts in a 55 gallons tank. But they have been in the same tank for a year and other newts are doing fine and breeding. I do not feed a lot to them and do change water in large quantity every two weeks (half tank). So, I dont see anything abnormal.

Currently all the newts are breeding and the females are laying eggs. I have experienced previously that my water plants will be all destroyed by the egg-laying females. So, I have not stock my water plant. Therefore, I only have java moss and pothos. Therefore, I have introduced the egg-laying plastic strips. Most newts are using it.

As for that newt with cloudy eye, she is gravid, I noticed that the she kept on trying to lay egg on the pothos leaf, which was too hard for egg laying. My javamoss in that tank was not in a good condition for egg laying. Since that newt is still gravid, so I suspect she did not use the plastic strip as the others do.

So, I am wondering, is this possible that the cloudy eye is a syndrome from the female not being able to lay eggs??
Since, if this has nothing to do with disease or water quality, then quarantining it to a container that she can not lay egg, might be worse.

I have now moved the newt to a small tank with a smaller population of Chinese fire belly, for better monitoring. Any suggestion is appreciated.

Hi Ian, one of my Co's had a cloudy eye a while back - heres the thread: http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52787&highlight=cynops+orientalis
As you can read from the thread the eye was diagnosed as having bacterial conjunctivitis and the animal was (eventually) treated with BNP. As far as I know this is not available over the counter, so a trip to the vet may be in order. The vet thought my animal must have experienced some trauma to the eye, like swimming into some drift wood or something. I wonder of your animal could have done the same thing?
As far as her not laying eggs I do not know if the eye could be related or not. Perhaps she has just not found an egg laying site that suits her "specifications." I wish you the best of luck with her.

It's not unusual to see a newt going through the motions of trying to lay eggs but not laying any. If you watched one of the other females closely you might see the same thing. I doubt that what she is doing is seriously abnormal.

With an eye, it's really hard to see closely enough to know what's going on. I'm caring for a tiger sal with an eye injury and the only way I can see the situation is to take close-up photos, then go to my computer and look at the photos. I can see way more detail this way than by looking at the sal. Any chance you have (or could borrow) a digital camera with a decent macro function?

Thanks jewett for the suggestions and sharing of the experience. I will observe further and see if it is a similar issue.
I also think that it might be some trauma caused issue.

Thanks Jennewt. I will try to take a good picture of it. Anyhow, I do observe a lot of failed egg laying attempts in many of my newts. It is that whenever they tried to use pothos to lay egg, they failed at folding the leaf. However, most newts have close to 100% successful rate in laying eggs on plastic strips and other small plants.

I have just taken a photo of the cloudy eye. Any help or suggestion is greatly appreciated. It seems to be worsen. Any suggestion on how to treat it?

Thanks

I'm no firebelly expert, but it looks fine to me.

Well, on the right of the eye, there is this white patch at the edge. That was not a reflection from my flash, cause I was not using a flash. The aquarium light fixture was right on top the tank. No other light source in there.

The white patch does look abnormal, but it doesn't look like an infection. If it were an infection, it would probably change over time (getting noticeably better or worse). If it has looked like this for a while, I would assume that it is an abnormality of some kind, but probably not something treatable.

I guess probably a wound in the eye then. I will try my best to ensure good water quality and let it heal on its own. Thanks for the advice.

just a little update, the eye of the newt is still doing the same. Anyhow, after moving the newt to another tank with the pothos much small (leaf not as big), the newt somehow started laying eggs on the plastic strips. So, this is kind of a good news.

For record purpose and also an update. The eye finally recovered without having me doing anything. I believe it is not a cloudy eye, but rather an injury on the eye. And an eye injury does recover.