C. Orientalis Problems

[andrew]

I bought a C. Orientalis a couple of months ago. He has not touched the water since a couple of weeks after i bought him. He also hasnt eaten for about a month. He has no sores or anything. The tank has about 9 inches of water and a piece of imatated cork bark for the land. There are about 6 plants in the water. what should i do?

 

[benjamin]

How big is he? He may still be a juvenile. Try feeding him earthworms on land often they go through terrestrial lapses. For more information look at http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Cynops/C_orientalis.shtml

 

[jesper]

The part about not touching water is normal, its normal for them not to eat too after pet shop experiences. I have had success putting those cases in soil(make sure the soil is free of pesticides) setups with corkbark on top and just a little container with water. I'd suggest that you take a nice juicy nightcrawler, just like Ben said, and chop it up into loads of small pieces and distribute evenly throughout such a setup as I recommended above.

(Message edited by Jesper on November 08, 2004)

 

[mark]

Thats a good idea Jesper. I have found that a lot of the Orientalis I get from pet stores really don't like to go in the water. But else I have found is that if you ask the "worker" to get one from the water, they stay mostly aquatic, but thats just me.

 

[jesper]

Hmm watch out though, cause the ones that are in the water are usually the ones having ulcers in my experience. I have posted this several times, in all pet shop cases I have had the orientalis with ulcers seek water and the healthy ones stay on land. Of course this is only an observation that I have made on severely stressed orientalis(i.e. pet shop orientalis) and is not valid for a healthy population where the orientalis are very aquatic.

 

[mark]

Hmmm, thats wierd, in my area, the ones with ulcers are the ones on the land.