Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi...i have a red-bellied newt....had 4 but 3 were my house partner´s and he took them with him.
I´ve had problems with temperature during the whole summer....he refused to eat during most of it....and showed clear signs of temp stress....(i´m spanish and it´s really hot here...)
I thought everything was starting to work well when the other day i found him laying out of the water and looking bad.
I took him out to see what happenedn and found he has a couple of wounds in the tail...one looks like his skin had become liquid... and the other one was a white spot. I realized something happened with the white spot....took it with my tongs and it came out...a rather large portion of white mucus. Now there´s a hole where the mucus was....
At first i thought it was something like a parasite...or a bug....but there was no head or anything on it...it was just mucus.

So what can i do..??? Is there any treatment for skin-infections??? It´s rather active....but the wounds are not healing...
can i put betadine on it??? or any antiseptic???

help please...:S

I'm not sure what it is, sorry! The best advice I can give is to bring it to a vet who handles amphibians.
Also check the Ph of the water, the ammonia level, and the temp of the water (it should be down around 70F or 19C.)
It could be an infection of some kind caused by stress from having his "partners" leave him too. Either way a vet should be consulted.
I hope he recovers!!! Please let me know what's up when you find out. It could be useful to someone else sometime.

All the vets in this city are dog/cat vets.....non of them have a clue about amphibians.
I think it´s not going to worse....i mean...there are no new wounds and the existing ones don´t look any worse....i hope he makes it....

I use Betadine on my reptiles when they have some problem....like a bad scale or something...
Could it be used on my newt??? I guess it will be toxic as they´re skin is permeable....but if someone knows if i can use it (100%harmless)....please tell me....cause it works great.

If you use betadine you stand a good chance of killing the newt as iodine is toxic to amphibians (even skin exposure as unlike reptiles they will readily absorb it). In addition, many products that are betadine like contain a surfactant (some kind soap) that is bad for amphibians.

All because they are a dog/cat vet doesn't mean that they can't help or do anything. The better vets will check with another vet that has experiece such as the vets that work for another Zoo.

Often with lesions like this, there maybe more than one causative agent and these all need to be addressed or the lesion will not resolve.

Ed