Question: Another salamander not eating thread

[Chaotic Crimson]

Hello I'm new here. I recently caught a wild tiger salamander (legal where I am with a fishing license) I'm 60% certain he is a male and isn't fully developed. I spent 4 hours going through multiple not eating threads on here and have been unable to find any solutions. All I can this is temperature.

Anyways when I brought him home I started him off in a large vivarium, 25 gallons if I remember right. Made using 50/50 water and dirt from his home environment.

For the first two weeks I fed him crickets until I found night crawlers to be better nutritionally, I've done a lot of reading on this website and I am thankful everyone is so helpful here, and he would eat them no problem.

When I switched to night crawlers he wouldn't touch them for about 2 weeks and then he would eat them cut up if I left them for him at night. After a month or so I switched his environment to 100% coco fiber from Eco earth, once again I love these forums, with a small pool area about 2 inches deep. When he stopped going in the water I stopped putting in the pool. Ps: Even the water I use to keep his coco moist has been dechlorinated ect using a treatment.

It's been about 4 months since I caught him and 1 month ago he stopped eating. I tried getting him big red worms to see if a different type would do the trick and it hasn't. He seems to look at them them trot off to his cup (A cup in his viv with some moist coco fiber in it turned on its side) where he spends, as far as I know, 100% of his time. I've never come home and seen him strolling around the viv.

The place where I keep him is roughly 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit. Right now I've been trying to feed him in a separate container on moist paper towels at night every night.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[mr cyclone]

Try keeping him on the paper towel substrate u till he starts eating regularly. And make sure they are kept clean and give him plenty of hides.
Your cocoblock substrate probably needs changed ,I wouldn't go overboard with mall wing it wet

 

[michael]

Give him some crickets again if he doesn't want to eat worms. Dust the crickets a couple times a month with calcium powder.

 

[Chaotic Crimson]

I've changed his coco monthly since putting it in and he only has the one hide since I assumed he would spend more time underground so I'll add more. I'll try crickets and keeping him on towels asap. Thankfully he hasn't lost any weight, he's still pretty pudgy. Thank you so much by the way.

Ps: is it normal to never see him out and about? By never I mean never. I've read about people's sals staying underground for a week or two but I mean never.

 

[Chaotic Crimson]

So I went out and got him mealworms (last ditch attempt cause if I remember right they will lead to obesity), crickets with a calcium block and powder (Protein not calcium? Whichever it is they are lacking I can't remember right now), and night crawlers a few days ago and fed him the same day I'm just now able to post. He attacked a night crawler but it was too big so I cut it up and he lost interest when it stopped moving. So I got a cricket and tried that. No dice. By now I'm starting to worry so I get a mealworm. He ate it I got a few more out which he hungrily ate. Then he didn't want anymore so I got a couple crickets out thinking maybe he would be more active now and he was. He ate 6.

Now that he ate all he could in one "sitting" I put him back in his viv and he burrowed down, a great sight since he's been in his hide mostly and I think he just didn't have the energy to dig. Haven't seen him come up since which is a good sign since they are normally underground.

I just wanted to thank you two so much. The crickets should be gut loaded by the time he's ready to feed again. I'm so happy he's doing better. Now I just need to come up with a name for him...