Snake Charmer
New member
I am new to owning newts and have had three for about a couple months now. One is badly injured from a cat attack and resting alone in a fish bowel in the closet. I am hoping to seek advise which I could not find from other threads, so below the lengthy write up is a slew of questions. I know this is long, but I tried to condense it while still keeping enough details.
I came home yesterday to discover my newt was not in the aquarium. I turned the apartment upside down and eventually found him in the other room dirty, curled up, beaten, and not moving (the cat certainly got a hold of him). I rushed him to the sink to rinse him, then I rushed him back to the aquarium to re-rinse him in the aquarium water, and finally placed him on the turtle dock. For about an hour or two as he remained motionless on the turtle dock, I called vets and Googled the issue. Most of the forums here concern injured axolotls, and some say to refrigerate them. The vet, over the phone, suggested not to refrigerate because it could be too much of a temperature shock and stress him. Instead, I took him out, held and gently pet him for a little bit to gauge his condition and responsiveness. His torso and tail appear in ok shape if not a little bruised while his head and limbs are brutal with his eyes red and sunken and front left leg the most mangled and chewed (other three are not nearly as bad). Afterward, I placed him in a glass fish bowl lined with paper towels wetted with aquarium water along with one of the land caves for him to hide. I set the bowl in the closet along with a thermometer, and created a duct system to funnel A/C air directly to the closet. This morning I checked the thermometer and the overnight temperature ranged from 59 to 63, and I see the newt relocated to hide inside the cave (for comparison I run a water chiller through the aquarium to keep the water between 68-69 and I usually do not regulate the ambient air room temperature which here in Houston has ranged between 70-85 the past few weeks which I feel is too warm for him and why I wanted to create a colder climate in the closet). I think that him being able to relocate under the cave is a good sign of movement compared to what I saw yesterday, so I chose not to do anything further and left him alone for fear of stressing him.
My plan is to leave him in the closet and continue running the A/C. I will eventually introduce flightless fruit flies as a source of food, but plan to wait a day or two only as a precaution for fear of having anything moving around him that might add stress. Here are my slew of questions:
What additional suggestion do you have? How often should I check on him? When I check on him, how much should I interfere, i.e. should I attempt to move him (or the cave he's currently hiding under) to see if he's still alive? Should I add anything else to his temporary habitat such as one or both of the other newts, a light source, peat moss or cleaned soil (maybe some of the dirt from the container of red wigglers I chop up and feed him)? When should I introduce the fruit flies as food? What temperature should I maintain the closet? If I cannot afford a vet visit, are their any OTC medications or supplements I can provide? How often should I change the paper towel and/or water keeping it damp? Should I use the aquarium water or dechlorinated fresh tap water?
Thank you for reading this.
For those curious how this happened and what I've done to correct it, this is my best understanding. I've previously been using a solid aquarium lid and had all gaps foiled and taped off (very secure). However, my cory cat fish seemed to be gasping for air at the surface more often than usual since I created this tight seal for the newts, so I assumed there wasn't enough air circulation to get fresh oxygen in the tank. This weekend I swapped the lid for one with screen meshing, but I think I did a poor job sealing off the opening where the water piping comes through the mesh to get to the chiller. Initially I had the mesh too tight around the piping and could not open the lid so I relaxed it a little bit. However, I think this may have been to relaxed and that the newt must have escaped through here. Therefore, I added an extra layer of net meshing around the piping. I'm planning to create another layer of netting as a failsafe, but if you have suggestions, then please let me know. It is a ten gallon aquarium, so the lid is one piece, which is what makes it difficult opening/closing when I maneuver the water piping around the screen meshing. I may engineer a two piece folding lid which would allow me to create a tighter seal in the back at the piping while the front could pivot open/closed. As for the cat, it's not allowed in the bedroom with the aquarium, so however the newt escaped, it traversed the bedroom and exited under the door. I plan to tape off these gaps under the door.
I came home yesterday to discover my newt was not in the aquarium. I turned the apartment upside down and eventually found him in the other room dirty, curled up, beaten, and not moving (the cat certainly got a hold of him). I rushed him to the sink to rinse him, then I rushed him back to the aquarium to re-rinse him in the aquarium water, and finally placed him on the turtle dock. For about an hour or two as he remained motionless on the turtle dock, I called vets and Googled the issue. Most of the forums here concern injured axolotls, and some say to refrigerate them. The vet, over the phone, suggested not to refrigerate because it could be too much of a temperature shock and stress him. Instead, I took him out, held and gently pet him for a little bit to gauge his condition and responsiveness. His torso and tail appear in ok shape if not a little bruised while his head and limbs are brutal with his eyes red and sunken and front left leg the most mangled and chewed (other three are not nearly as bad). Afterward, I placed him in a glass fish bowl lined with paper towels wetted with aquarium water along with one of the land caves for him to hide. I set the bowl in the closet along with a thermometer, and created a duct system to funnel A/C air directly to the closet. This morning I checked the thermometer and the overnight temperature ranged from 59 to 63, and I see the newt relocated to hide inside the cave (for comparison I run a water chiller through the aquarium to keep the water between 68-69 and I usually do not regulate the ambient air room temperature which here in Houston has ranged between 70-85 the past few weeks which I feel is too warm for him and why I wanted to create a colder climate in the closet). I think that him being able to relocate under the cave is a good sign of movement compared to what I saw yesterday, so I chose not to do anything further and left him alone for fear of stressing him.
My plan is to leave him in the closet and continue running the A/C. I will eventually introduce flightless fruit flies as a source of food, but plan to wait a day or two only as a precaution for fear of having anything moving around him that might add stress. Here are my slew of questions:
What additional suggestion do you have? How often should I check on him? When I check on him, how much should I interfere, i.e. should I attempt to move him (or the cave he's currently hiding under) to see if he's still alive? Should I add anything else to his temporary habitat such as one or both of the other newts, a light source, peat moss or cleaned soil (maybe some of the dirt from the container of red wigglers I chop up and feed him)? When should I introduce the fruit flies as food? What temperature should I maintain the closet? If I cannot afford a vet visit, are their any OTC medications or supplements I can provide? How often should I change the paper towel and/or water keeping it damp? Should I use the aquarium water or dechlorinated fresh tap water?
Thank you for reading this.
For those curious how this happened and what I've done to correct it, this is my best understanding. I've previously been using a solid aquarium lid and had all gaps foiled and taped off (very secure). However, my cory cat fish seemed to be gasping for air at the surface more often than usual since I created this tight seal for the newts, so I assumed there wasn't enough air circulation to get fresh oxygen in the tank. This weekend I swapped the lid for one with screen meshing, but I think I did a poor job sealing off the opening where the water piping comes through the mesh to get to the chiller. Initially I had the mesh too tight around the piping and could not open the lid so I relaxed it a little bit. However, I think this may have been to relaxed and that the newt must have escaped through here. Therefore, I added an extra layer of net meshing around the piping. I'm planning to create another layer of netting as a failsafe, but if you have suggestions, then please let me know. It is a ten gallon aquarium, so the lid is one piece, which is what makes it difficult opening/closing when I maneuver the water piping around the screen meshing. I may engineer a two piece folding lid which would allow me to create a tighter seal in the back at the piping while the front could pivot open/closed. As for the cat, it's not allowed in the bedroom with the aquarium, so however the newt escaped, it traversed the bedroom and exited under the door. I plan to tape off these gaps under the door.