2 Japanese firebellys 1 randomly stopped eating

[jjatdvs]

OK, hard to sum up my story in just a title. but i had bought 2 Japanese firebellys a few years ago. they were both always great eaters. they ate ANYTHING i gave them. which was great. one day one of them decides he doesn't want ANYTHING i give him. so i went out and bought every kind of live food and dried food that a newt would eat. finally he decided he really enjoys tubiflex worms. ok so great. he gets that now. i put some large rocks near the front of the tank for them to stand on to give them a platform for when i drop some food into the tank. so everyday i used to see them stand on the rock waiting for food. haha. one of them used to every follow my finger very excited as if hes doing tricks to get food. now this one that used to do that is developing the same issue the other one did about a year ago. he doesn't want to eat anything! but hes not acting sick. hes very active, even when he was younger he was always climbing the glass, climbing the filter hes very active. doesn't have cloudy eyes, and isnt lethargic. but he refuses to eat anything dried, and is afraid of anything alive now! if i stick a worm in the tank on tweezers he will ignore me until the worm touches him and then he will jump cause he would get scared. after not eating for about a week and a half he finally decided he would have 1 tiny bite of some dried mysis shrimp. so it seems he will if he really really needs it, have 1 tiny bite of mysis shrimp. can anybody recommend anything here?!

 

[innerdialogue]

How large are the worms you're offering? My fire belly (when he decides to) will only take the smallest of pieces. Otherwise he won't touch them and eats mostly blood worms. I'm going to try to switch him to earthworms soon since they're better for him.

 

[Asevernnnn]

What kind of foods have you been trying, like what type of worms, how big, etc.
I wouldn't bother with feeding freezedried anything tbh.
What's the setup like, how large, water temp, how much water is actually in it, etc.

 

[Chinadog]

Newts can refuse food for lots of reasons, would it be possible to post a picture of your newts and set up? it makes it much easier to work out what's wrong if we know exactly what set up you have.
Are you sure they're Japanese firebellies? Asian newts are often miss labelled in pet stores. To give the best advice we need to be certain what species they are.

 

[jjatdvs]

thanks for all the replies guys! i really appreciate it.

well when i bought them the store had called them paddle tails. but from what i have researched online, it seems they are Japanese firebellys. as far as my set up, i have a 20 gallon tank with 2 Japanese firebellys in there. water temp is pretty much around 69 to 71 depending on room temperature. BUT, they have never reacted differently from the water. i have a large rock filter and water is filled about half way. they arent swimmers though. 1 of them wants nothing to do with being out of water and the other really enjoys climbing the filter and siting on top. hes the one that doesn't eat. i went through many different types of tank set ups for them to see what they are the most accustomed too. they dont like to really swim to the top for air. they prefer to just step on a few rocks and get air rather easily. they are lazy, they take after me. they are active and will walk around the bottom. in the tank i have some gravel, some rocks and some plastic plants. same things in the tank from when i got them. they each have a little cave they can hide in. from what i have put together they are happy in there, and have always been. the size of the worms are pretty small. i bought some nightcrawers and i cut them in half. length wise i have been tying to give them smaller than an inch and width wise less than 1/4 of a inch . but my newt is rather large. length wise hes about 6 inches with his tale. he should be able to devour that worm no problem. but hes scared of it! people say to stay away from dried food, but my newts have always eaten dried food with no problems. like i said 1 of my newts really only likes to eat dried tubiflex worms. but this 1 newt wont eat anything, live bloodworms, live nightcrawlers, canned small crickets, freezedried blood worms, dried tubiflex worms, i even tried repto sticks! dried mysis shrimp seems to be the only thing he wants and thats only after a week and a half of throwing his temper tantrum and not eating.

 

[Asevernnnn]

If they came from a store they are most likely either Paramesotriton sp., Pachytriton sp., or Hypselotriton sp.. C. pyrrhogaster doesn't show up very much in pet stores anymore from what I've read. Out of those i think Paramesotriton sp. would be easiest to confuse with pyrrhos and paddletails, they are fairly large, rough skin, and have a long tail.
Pictures of the newt would help determine what it is.
Freezedried food has little to no nutritional value, referencing what I was told when didn't know much about feeding, its basically paper. My recommendations would be to cool down the tank, replace the substrate with either rinsed sand, siliconed substrate, or bare bottom to prevent a build up of waste and uneaten food, especially if you were feeding freeze dried or frozen worms, they get everywhere and foul the water quickly. Ideally under the right conditions all the species I listed should be fully aquatic and need nothing more than a piece of floating cork bark.
By any chance are the night crawlers you attempted to feed actually Red Worms/Red Wigglers?

 

[jjatdvs]

possibly they were red worms. they were red. labeled in the store as nightcrawers. he wouldnt eat them. the freeze dried food does list the nutrition value on it and it doesn't seem like its just paper. seems fairly good if you dont really intent to feed live food. i never really wanted to feed them live food, i only tried cause at one point one went through a phase of not eating and now this other one is going through that too.

 

[Asevernnnn]

Caudata Culture Articles - Food Items for Captive Caudates
Freeze-dried foods are never recommended, even if live food isn't fed there are other options. Freeze-dried food have little nutritional value, basically most of everything nutritional about them gets dried out. Even frozen foods are more nutritional than them. People substitute live foods with high quality pellets, whether they be high quality pellets for newts, carnivore pellets or salmon pellets. Living on only freeze-dried foods really isn't healthy and pictures of the setup and the newts would really help in figuring out what can be done to help.