Emaciation

[horsefieldi]

I am housing 8 P.waltii in a 55 gallon tank.Tank is heavily planted.There are also 6 white cloud minnows in the tank. Two of the newts have become emaciated. I have separated these two newts into a qiarantine tank. They are alert. They take live blackworms and chopped worms. They are not putting weight on. Today I saw that a large amount of blackworms were eaten,however, I noted that the newt regurgitated all of them appx. 10 minutes after eating them.
The other newts in the tank are fine and eating. Since I can't put my finger on the cause of the emaciation, I am considering doing a tank breakdown and restart. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[shmifty5]

since there where so many animals in the tank i would be willing to bet that the animals were simply not getting to the food in time. there may be a parasite as well but given the circumstances i would think the food being eaten by the others first would be the cause of the emaciation.

 

[slowfoot]

If the cause of the emaciation is competition for food, it will take a while for them to regain the weight. How long ago did you separate them? The fact that they want to eat is a good sign.

As far as the vomiting: my newts will often vomit after eating too much food at once, so I'm not sure it's too worrying yet, especially if the thin newts are super hungry.

 

[CherryBlossom]

interesting thread. I do hope they start eating again for you soon xxxxx