Algae growing on my FBN...

[ken]

My FBN Lenny seems to be getting a bit of algae on him...he lives in a 50%land /50%water terrarium with several live plants and two rams head snails. His water gets a tad of algae, but not a lot, and the snails take care of a good portion of that. At first when Lenny went into the water he looked silvery and I though he was about to shed, but now I see that the silver is air trapped in the algae.

Lenny is quite content, healthy and active. He feeds and plays about in the water and has recently taken to standing on the snails to peer out of the water. He's friendly and comes over to the glass whenever I come near the tank.

Is this algae coat of his dangerous? And how should I clean him if it becomes too much? I thought that I should put on some wet latex gloves and just try to gently rub it off, but I thought I'd check first.

 

[jesper]

Hmmm, having a cynops orientalis named Lenny kind of screws up your image Ken

I'd say watch out for the Ramshorn snails they have a sharp "lid" that they can use to cut of various body parts of curious newts...

About the skin, I don't think it is algae. Bubbles tend to get stuck on the skin of terrestrial orientalis, sometimes they even float, when they enter the water indicating that the skin has adopted to a terrestrial phase. The floating part might be more due to gas in the intestine, maybe more gas is accumulated when they are terrestrial(?). After a period in the water this stops happening.

If you post a photo we might be able to say for sure.

 

[jennifer]

I have never heard of algae attaching to a newt's skin. I suspect it is "something else", but I don't know what. He will shed his skin occasionally, so whatever it is should come off (unless it's a part of his natural skin color).

 

[ken]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Jesper Danielsson (Jesper) wrote on Saturday, October 16, 2004 - 16:10 :</font>

"Hmmm, having a cynops orientalis named Lenny kind of screws up your image Ken "<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Heh, he's named after Lenny on Law & Order actually. I'll try to get a picture of him once he stops being mad at me for putting a filter in his tank.