A. Tigrinum Skin Issues

[scleroglossa]

Hi all; first-time poster, long-time reader.

I'll try to keep it brief.

I have a year-old, captive-bred Ambystoma tigrinum living in a 90-wide Exo Terra with 3-5 inches of coco fiber, who has started developing small (pinhead-sized) black spots on his skin. They're present throughout his patterning, and have a different texture to his skin. I'm assuming (for now) that this is the start of a fungal/bacterial infection.

This is almost certainly due to husbandry error on my part, and I'm unspeakably angry at myself. I'd provided him with a shallow plastic tray filled with (treated) water, changed daily, as a "wet" side, in addition to a heaped-up pile of coco fiber with cork hides etc on the "dry" side. I noticed he was spending a lot of time either in or buried directly underneath his water area, but dismissed it as "he's still digging like he should be". I piled more coco fiber on the "dry" side and stopped running the UVB light (Arcadia Shadedweller) as much during the day... yep, I realize now what a mistake that was as well. In the last few weeks I noticed that he was startling and bolting any time he was in the water area and something moved outside the vivarium, and remarked to my mum how unusual it was. Sometimes he would bolt as I was feeding him. I noticed the black spots late last night and made a note to check him today and remove his water dish. When I did, the spots were already noticeably bigger.

It'll be a vet visit as soon as I can feasibly book one (assuming this exotics vet has experience with amphibians). Until then, I'm reading the Caudata instructions on salt baths.

My question is this: what kind of setup do I need to provide him with during this time, to both halt the spread of the infection whilst also not stressing him or damaging his skin further? Do I go full "damp paper towels as substrate and plastic hides", do I give him a fresh layer of coco fiber and just change it throughout his treatment, etc. If I do have to go the "damp paper towels as substrate" route, will he be okay not being able to display his natural burrowing behavior? He's still very active, a good weight, and has a normal appetite, so I don't want to over-correct and put him in a situation that's more stressful for him. Do I continue to provide him with a (small, shallow) water dish to soak in during this period, or is that a bad idea no matter how many times it gets cleaned?

Basically, if anyone could walk me through what my short-term setup and routine for an A. tigrinum with suspected skin issues should be, I would be hugely grateful - as you can imagine, I'm trying to triple-check with more experienced keepers before I make any more husbandry decisions.......

 

[axolotl nerd]

Hi all; first-time poster, long-time reader.

I'll try to keep it brief.

I have a year-old, captive-bred Ambystoma tigrinum living in a 90-wide Exo Terra with 3-5 inches of coco fiber, who has started developing small (pinhead-sized) black spots on his skin. They're present throughout his patterning, and have a different texture to his skin. I'm assuming (for now) that this is the start of a fungal/bacterial infection.

This is almost certainly due to husbandry error on my part, and I'm unspeakably angry at myself. I'd provided him with a shallow plastic tray filled with (treated) water, changed daily, as a "wet" side, in addition to a heaped-up pile of coco fiber with cork hides etc on the "dry" side. I noticed he was spending a lot of time either in or buried directly underneath his water area, but dismissed it as "he's still digging like he should be". I piled more coco fiber on the "dry" side and stopped running the UVB light (Arcadia Shadedweller) as much during the day... yep, I realize now what a mistake that was as well. In the last few weeks I noticed that he was startling and bolting any time he was in the water area and something moved outside the vivarium, and remarked to my mum how unusual it was. Sometimes he would bolt as I was feeding him. I noticed the black spots late last night and made a note to check him today and remove his water dish. When I did, the spots were already noticeably bigger.

It'll be a vet visit as soon as I can feasibly book one (assuming this exotics vet has experience with amphibians). Until then, I'm reading the Caudata instructions on salt baths.

My question is this: what kind of setup do I need to provide him with during this time, to both halt the spread of the infection whilst also not stressing him or damaging his skin further? Do I go full "damp paper towels as substrate and plastic hides", do I give him a fresh layer of coco fiber and just change it throughout his treatment, etc. If I do have to go the "damp paper towels as substrate" route, will he be okay not being able to display his natural burrowing behavior? He's still very active, a good weight, and has a normal appetite, so I don't want to over-correct and put him in a situation that's more stressful for him. Do I continue to provide him with a (small, shallow) water dish to soak in during this period, or is that a bad idea no matter how many times it gets cleaned?

Basically, if anyone could walk me through what my short-term setup and routine for an A. tigrinum with suspected skin issues should be, I would be hugely grateful - as you can imagine, I'm trying to triple-check with more experienced keepers before I make any more husbandry decisions.......

i'm by no means an expert, especially not with a. tigrinum, as i've never kept them, but i remember seeing pictures of seemingly healthy individuals with the kind of small black spots you're describing.

edited before posting, but wanted to record my mistake regardless. fire salamanders are what i was thinking of, ill attach images below.

however, i believe the purpose of these small pores is to secrete toxins, but that's just speculation as i haven't ever checked.

just trying to offer ideas, i hope someone experienced with tigrinum can offer better advice. good luck

 

[scleroglossa]

just trying to offer ideas, i hope someone experienced with tigrinum can offer better advice. good luck

No, you actually raise a great point that I overlooked in my haste to post, which is that photos of these mysterious "black spots" might actually help direct people giving advice.

They're not the best shots, since it's almost 4am and he was in a very wriggly "if you're not giving me worms then why are you even touching me" mood, but I managed to get a decent view of the spots on his flank/arm, and also a shot of some of them under a magnifier:

 

[axolotl nerd]

No, you actually raise a great point that I overlooked in my haste to post, which is that photos of these mysterious "black spots" might actually help direct people giving advice.

They're not the best shots, since it's almost 4am and he was in a very wriggly "if you're not giving me worms then why are you even touching me" mood, but I managed to get a decent view of the spots on his flank/arm, and also a shot of some of them under a magnifier:

i've got no clue, but hopefully someone else will
hope he's okay

 

[wolfen]

this might help Illness/Sickness: - Help!! Black spots what is it?

 

[scleroglossa]

Many thanks for this, much appreciated to both of you for your help.

I moved my boy over to a paper towel setup today; I mixed up a mild salt solution (less than 2tsp of salt flakes to 1000ml water) and rinsed him off in his vivarium, then left him in the salt solution for ten minutes; I then rinsed him off again with clean (treated) water before I added him to his quarantine setup.

I also took another, clearer photo whilst he was soaking, so that I can track the progression of the spots (if any).

He's booked in at the RVC's Beaumont Sainsbury clinic on Tuesday. At the risk of turning this post into my own personal journal, I plan to report back then - the scientist in me is keen to document this process for anyone Googling this problem in the future.

As an aside, a well-meaning friend attempted to help by looking up "infections in salamanders" and sending me a link to their findings - I'm sure everyone in here can sympathise when I say that "I found out about this thing called Bsal" is not what you want to hear in this situation!

 

[axolotl nerd]

Many thanks for this, much appreciated to both of you for your help.

I moved my boy over to a paper towel setup today; I mixed up a mild salt solution (less than 2tsp of salt flakes to 1000ml water) and rinsed him off in his vivarium, then left him in the salt solution for ten minutes; I then rinsed him off again with clean (treated) water before I added him to his quarantine setup.

I also took another, clearer photo whilst he was soaking, so that I can track the progression of the spots (if any).

He's booked in at the RVC's Beaumont Sainsbury clinic on Tuesday. At the risk of turning this post into my own personal journal, I plan to report back then - the scientist in me is keen to document this process for anyone Googling this problem in the future.

As an aside, a well-meaning friend attempted to help by looking up "infections in salamanders" and sending me a link to their findings - I'm sure everyone in here can sympathise when I say that "I found out about this thing called Bsal" is not what you want to hear in this situation!

i think your idea to document it on here is a good idea, both to store the data in the time capsule that is the internet, as well as to offer help for anyone with the same thing

 

[scleroglossa]

I wrote this post up and then somehow lost it, go figure. Anyway, here's the update on my A. tigrinum's skin issues.

Monday:

• I kept my boy in the quarantine setup for the rest of the weekend, replacing the paper towels daily; I also gave him another mild salt bath on Monday (1tsp aquarium salt to 1000ml water, rinsed him off in his vivarium, then soaked him for ten minutes, before rinsing him off with clean (treated) water).
  • By Monday afternoon, he had developed a lot of very dense, crusty-looking black spotting around his vent - I was unable to get a photo, but it looked identical to the spotting in this thread that @/wolfen linked earlier: Illness/Sickness: - Help!! Black spots what is it?
  • His appetite was fine during this time; I fed him on Sunday, and he was up at the glass begging for food as usual on the Monday evening. His weight was 131g on Saturday, down to 129g on Sunday before I fed him, then back up to 136g on Monday.

Tuesday:

• On Tuesday I took him to the (very excellent) RVC Beaumont Sainsbury Clinic, where the vet did a full write-up of his care and history. He examined my boy and confirmed that the spotting seemed fungal, as there was no underlying redness of the skin that would be associated with a bacterial infection.
• The vet's main concern, based on my salamander's age (approx 2 years old, I fumbled the dates in my initial post), his sudden affinity towards water, and the concentration of the infection around his vent, was that this could be an asymptomatic Chytrid (B. salamandrivorans) infection which had presented upon my salamander reaching sexual maturity.
  
  
• It was decided that they would admit my salamander overnight in order to do tissue biopsies the next morning; in the meantime, we would start slowly raising his temps to 25°C for a period of 7-10 days, as this has been shown to be efficient at combatting B. sal infections (source)

Wednesday:

• Despite two attempts at anaesthetising my salamander using two separate methods, he instead became more active and started marching laps of his enclosure! The vet therefore decided to discontinue the attempts.
• Whilst they were attempting to anaesthetise him, my salamander shed a large portion of his skin containing the lesions. The vet collected some of this to send away for testing, along with some swabs - not as good as a biopsy, but it might tell us something.
• He then went to try and sample the spotting around my salamander's vent, only to discover that he'd shed all of the lesions there as well and it was only healthy, unmarked skin.

Between my picking him up on Wednesday evening and getting him home, my salamander shed the remaining skin - as of today (Thursday) all of the lesions have disappeared and he looks back to his old self! The little git....

So not the most informative outcome, but also a cautiously optimistic one! The results of the tests should be due next week, so I'll let you know what they say (if anything!)

 

[scleroglossa]

I realised very belatedly that I never came back to update this post - to be fair, the outcome was fairly anti-climatic, but as someone who hates Googling forum posts for things and finding out the OP never posted the solution, I'm going to wrap this one up and leave it here as a reference for any keepers searching information in the future.

---

Summary:
In November 2022, my tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) developed small black spots across his entire body; see this post for photos. Hei-Hei was (at the time) a two-year-old male, captive-bred tiger salamander, living in a 90-wide Exo Terra, with three to four inches of Coco Fiber substrate and a 9" plastic roller tray filled with dechlorinated water. I had him under an Arcadia Shadedweller 2.4% UVB at the recommendation of the person I bought him from, and fed him on a mixture of earthworms and Repashy "Grub Pie", with the occasional soft-bodied insect (Dubia roaches, calciworms, waxworms, etc) as a treat. I noticed before this that he spent the majority of his time in his water area, and seemed more "skittish" if someone moved outside of his vivarium when he was swimming. Apart from this, his appetite remained good, and his weight remained consistent throughout.

Initial Treatment:
I immediately moved him to a sterile setup: I mixed a very mild solution of diluted aquarium salt (2tsp of salt flakes to 1000ml water) and used this to rinse him off in his vivarium. I then left him to sit in the salt solution for ten minutes whilst I emptied and disinfected his vivarium. I then put down a layer of moist paper towels, some plastic hides (tip: cheap plastic flowerpots cut in half work really well for this), and a small plastic water dish, and rinsed him off again in plain dechlorinated water before introducing him. By the next morning he had shed, but the spotting had increased in size and visibility, and seemed to be concentrated around his vent. I booked an appointment with the RVC Beaumont Sainsbury Clinic, who were concerned based on his age, sudden affinity for water, and the concentration of the infection around his vent that this could have been an asymptomatic Chytrid (B. salamandrivorans) infection which had presented upon my salamander reaching sexual maturity. He noted that the spotting seemed superficial (the lesions were coming off in my salamander's shed) and probably fungal, as there was no underlying redness of the skin that might indicate a bacterial infection. Nonetheless, it was decided to do some tissue biopsies to see if we could confirm. Unfortunately, both attempts to anaesthatise my salamander ahead of the procedure failed, and the vet had to discontinue the attempts. They did manage to collect a large portion of shed skin containing several lesions, which they sent away along with some swabs. He specifically cautioned against using any kind of chemical anti-fungal or antibiotic treatments due to risk of further damage to his skin, particularly as the lesions were superficial and we couldn't see any sign of open wounds.

Home Treatment:
The vet recommended I keep Hei-Hei in a quarantine setup and start gradually raising his temps to a maximum of 25°C, which I would then maintain for a period of 7-10 days, as heat has been shown as efficient at combatting B. sal infections (source)***. I kept him on paper towels during this period, which required me to spray the vivarium religiously two to three times a day in order to keep them damp. Each day I repeated the same process I had when intiially disinfecting his enclosure, using the same mild aquarium salt solution, but opted not to do a full soak after the first couple of vivarium cleans as I wanted to give his skin time to settle and heal on its own. The lesions returned several times over the next two weeks, during which time I would often discover him with strings of black goo (the shed skin) hanging off his body. I would say maybe four days into the 25°C temps, the spotting stopped returning. The biopsy testing eventually came back negative for B. sal, although the vet did note that this isn't a conclusive result.

The Aftermath:
After several days without any sign of spotting, I moved Hei-Hei back into his 90-wide (still on a sterile paper towel setup). I then slowly reintroduced the Coco Fiber substrate, to ensure that he couldn't bury himself under four inches of dirt whilst I was still doing daily checks. I removed the 9" roller tray and offered a smaller dish of water for him to soak in, and took the Arcadia UVB out entirely. It's been seven months and I haven't noticed any reoccurance of the mysterious spotting, so I've made my peace with the fact that this was likely "just" a fungal infection, possibly caused by improper husbandry (either the UVB light or the incorrect water-to-land ratio in his original vivarium), which either resolved itself or was resolved by the heat treatment the vet recommended.


*** a necessary disclaimer: Obviously, please don't attempt this treatment on your amphibians without first seeking advice from an exotic vet or comparable expert! Raising the temperatures beyond recommended levels on some species, even temporarily, could do more harm than good, so it's always best to check first.

---

I'm pleased to report that, seven months on, my boy remains healthy, and is back to begging at the front of his enclosure in the evenings. He could probably stand to drop a little weight though!

I'm so grateful to those of you who responded to my initial post, and to this forum for giving me a place to jot down my thoughts whilst this was all going on - relaying it in clinical language really helped me deal with the anxiety of not knowing what I was dealing with, especially when the vet mentioned Chytrid as a possibility.

 

[Aroymom]

Thank you so much for keeping this updated! I noticed some black specks on my tiger salamander recently and have been reading all the ideas and forums I can find! Conclusions are very helpful.