JFBN can live about 20+ years. Was he full grown when you purchased him?

Also, what are you feeding him and how often? I strongly recommend against using goldfish as they are very commonly a vector for disease or parasites.

I would personally recommend frozen fish foods and live diced earthworms as the diet for a newt such as yours. Feed every three days for a healthy and active animal.

Without seeing the animal my first guess would be possibly diet, the next would be if it was the disease called bloat where he swells up all over. Has that happend?

Try to take a photo if you can.

>>I have a smooth skin Japanese Firebelly Newt that is approximately six years old. He is also a whopping seven inches long and very robust! He eats anything that swims in his tank with him, which has restricted his tank-mates to baby golfish only. And I must say that they only last about a month until he needs new tank-mates. Just recently (about a month), he hasn't been able to use his hind legs at all for either walking or swimming. I'm not sure if I should be overly concerned or if this is just because of his size and age combined. I don't think that he is sick because just the other day he ate another tank-mate and some prawns. Does anybody have some words or wisdom???


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Hope my opinions help,
Rob

[ Hide Replies ]

• Japanese Firebelly Newt - jomar, Sat Jan 3 10:39:28 2004
• RE: Japanese Firebelly Newt - sevenofthorns, Sat Jan 3 11:31:37 2004
• RE: Japanese Firebelly Newt - jomar, Sat Jan 3 14:21:55 2004
• RE: Japanese Firebelly Newt - sevenofthorns, Sat Jan 3 18:55:49 2004
• RE: Japanese Firebelly Newt - jomar, Mon Jan 12 17:53:03 2004
• RE: Japanese Firebelly Newt - sevenofthorns, Wed Jan 14 09:30:21 2004