T. verrucosus

[chris]

One of my five CB T.verrucosus has recently started to look unwell. It has taken to land, is unresponsive, weak and refuses to eat. Although not looking thin, it has a saggy look to it. Its skin looks healthy, however, and the other 4 animals seem very healthy, and have recently bred. It may or may not have been this female which lid the eggs.
I have separated it to a tilted container with a damp paper towel substrate and hiding places in both damp and dryer places. The animal is looking around, but its body seems very floppy and it is unwilling to walk around.
Any ideas as to what is wrong or what else I can do?
Chris
(PS if this belongs in the 'Help' section, please move it)

 

[john]

The thread can stay where it is I think.

Could you possibly take a close up photo of this animal and post the photo here? Under what conditions has the animal lived (before you moved it) ?

 

[chris]

John - sorry I don't have a camera...
The animal (and the other four) lived in a heavily planted, filtered 4ft aquarium. Plants include elodea/egeria, java fern (microsorium pteropus), java moss, Riccia sp. Indian fern, duckweed and vallesineria.
The aquarium is very well balanced.
This has been very sudden. Apart from the unresponsiveness the animal appears healthy. Its crawled under a tile now, and isn't quite so floppy, but is not very active at all, and won't even look at food items.
As I said before, the other animals in the group are perfectly healthy.
The one thing that I can think of that could cause damage to an animal would be when one grabs another at feeding time. Occasionally I have to extract a whole tail from the throat of another newt - could this have caused damage to the oesophagus?

 

[john]

Hi Chris,

I suppose that's possible. Is this newt very thin? Perhaps it just wants to over winter under terrestrial conditions? Do you ever give them a cooling off period in the winter months?

 

[chris]

This is their first winter, and I was going to lower the temps to about 20C bnut hadn't done so yet. I helped the newts out of its skin today, and placed it in a breeding net in the main tank. It seems a lot more active now, and mannaged to climb out of the net and into the water. It still seems a lot more sluggish than the others, though, and is still not interested in food.
Do you think I should leave it in the main tank or put it back in a terrestrial setup? I don't have the equipment at the moment to heat an aquatic isolation tank.
Thanks
Chris

 

[john]

If it keeps trying to get out of the water, I would keep it out of the water. I try to give my verrucosus a time at 18 degrees during the winter. It's not quit over wintering, but it does encourage them to come out of the water for a while.

 

[chris]

I have put it back in the paper-towel tank. I have kept it very wet - should I dry it a bit more? The newt is still very sluggish - it just crawls under the nearest tile very slowly and stays there...
Chris

 

[john]

I would say that the drier the better.

This does seem to be mysterious. I hope it picks up.

 

[chris]

It died sometime this afternoon....it hasn't yet gone into rigomortis, but edema is setting in and I think its actually dead, not 'faking' as sometimes happens with Tylos...I noticed it walking around a bit this morning, and built up some hopes...
The skin was also lighter when I got home and found her, particularly on the venter, but this may be to do with the death.
One other symptom was repeated sloughing prior to death - 2-3 sloughs (one may have been a complete slough, or the remains of a prior one) in her last 24 hours.
If it helps id the cause, the eyes also went partially opaque soon after death.

AS you say, this is very strange. The animal was fine 10 days ago, and the rest of the group are very active, completely aquatic, eating like pigs and showing signs of breeding.
Perhaps if I'd watched them more closely I could have caught this earlier...but I wouldn't have known what to do anyway...

Chris

 

[john]

For what it's worth, Chris, all animals can die relatively suddenly by no fault of the keeper. I've never encountered a problem like that with verrucosus, and I hope I never do. I have a feeling you were just unlucky.