Sick and listless p waltl

[gord]

For the past two weeks...my lone p waltl has gone from healthy as a horse to sick and listless. I knew as soon as he ignored a dew worm that there was a problem. Now he has gone totally to land and sits there..making weird little gulps.There is no sign of bloat..but it's sick and I think getting ready to check out. I did a water change and checked the PH.It was ok. I'm tempted to try a salt bath as a last ditch effort but has anyone seen this symptom before? I should say I lost this newts tank mate last summer but I'm pretty sure that was heat stress.It was during a very hot period and I could not keep the tank cool. Any help would be appreciated.

Gord

 

[jennifer]

Sorry to hear it. I wish I had some good advice, but it's really hard to say what might be going on. In the absence of skin problems or bloat, I don't think a salt bath would do anything except annoy the newt.

 

[mark]

If it were mine I would force it to be aquatic -just to get an idea how sick it is. In the wild they only leave the water in adverse conditions and terrestrial animals behave very differently to aquatic ones. In my experience land-bound Pleuros don't feed even if they are well and the lack of activity will slow their metabolism down. To be on the safe side you could put it in a “hospital” set-up – fresh water, no substrate and a plastic plant or 2. Just change the water completely once a week. Good luck, I hope he makes it!

 

[gord]

Mark and Jen:

Thanks for the advice and good wishes. The newt looks a bit better today..although it is still desperate to stay out of the water. I may try the hospital tank trick and tear down its present tank for a good cleaning. Perhaps there is something obvious I'm missing(?) I've learned it doesn't hurt to try something different. He sure isn't happy right now!

GE

 

[gord]

Just an update...my ribbed newt is still kicking and is now putting up with being totally aquatic. I've noticed a few things...it looks like there is either some left over shed on the newts tail or it has some kind of fungus. The tail is white and a bit slimy. The newt also looks a tad bloaty...or may be gravid. So I went for the 10 minute salt dip and then put it in a nearly bare hospital tank with some fake plants. Just enough to keep its head out. It crawled the side for a bit then gave up. I've ripped down the old tank and will disinfect it. There was a fair bit of sludge buried in the gravel so it may be a husbandry issue.

Will keep you posted.

Gord

 

[gord]

Hello all.Well, last night I put the sick newt down.It had severe bloat and was obviously starting to suffer. I'm no softy, but it was sure hard to do.

Still can't understand what happened, but I think I must have infected the tank with a disease from one of my other tanks...although my other various newts, frogs, lizards and fish seem fine.

Gord

 

[mark]

Sorry to hear that Gord. The bloat would have been a symptom of the infection/kidney failure that made it sick in the first place. I've lost a Pleuro in this manner before. You'll probably never know what caused it. When it happened to me I didn't even know what “bloat” was (it was many years ago). I didn't quarantine the sick animal, it even died in the tank with the healthy ones - none of the other newts became ill and they are still alive today so it was probably kidney failure rather than infection. It’s a shame you aren’t within travelling distance, I’ve got plenty spare…

(Message edited by mike on March 14, 2006)