Newt floats, can't eat.

[xtinana]

Hello. I was hoping that an issue with my little C.orientalis would resolve itself, but unfortunately it has not. My newt has always preferred land to water, but he has comfortably gone to the bottom of the tank and stayed there many times before. He used to take thawing bloodworms out of my hand! But for some reason recently, it seems the newt cannot stay on the bottom of the tank. He will latch onto plants underwater, but once he loses his grip on the plant he quickly floats upwards and frantically swims in search of his land space. He will stay on land, and because of this, he is not eating. I have tried to give him food on land and by tweezers but he will not accept it. I did temporarily move him to a low-water environment for the sake of eating, and it was slightly successful, but he was very unhappy with the move out of the regular tank. Ideally, I'd like to find a solution that keeps him in the tank and able to get to the bottom. I think that his lack of ability to sink is a pretty large issue. The current is low, so I can't see this being a problem, and I have two other fire-belly newts that are happy staying in the water for most of the day so I do not think the water quality is off. I thought it was possible that he is still a juvenile, since he is much shorter than the other two newts, but knowing he has remained underwater before makes things confusing. It does not look like he has any gas bubble or bloat issues...other than being very thin, he looks normal. I cannot figure out what is wrong here! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have seen similar posts with this issue here...but nothing perfectly matched this problem. If this has happened before to someone's knowledge, a link to that post would likely be helpful too.

 

[Kribby]

Hopefully we will be able to help you sort out this issue and get him back to normal. I have a couple of questions though that might help us diagnose his particular issue:
Is he passing waste normally? (should be fairly compact and round)
Is he floating by any part of his body? EI, the tail end?
Is he currently eating?
Is he currently in the quarantine container or in the main tank?
How long has he been having floatation issues?

 

[xtinana]

You know...this has been going on for about a week, and shortly after putting in food I checked on the tank and he was in the food dish...not looking as though he was struggling to stay at the bottom or anything. I will still answer the questions, in the event that this happens again in the near future:

He is passing waste normally.
No part of the body was floating upwards before anything else; the entire body went up all at once.
He was not eating in the main tank, just staying on the floating dock...so I quarantined him for a day or two. In the quarantine he ate a few bloodworms, but he did not want to remain in the quarantine...he tried to climb up the walls and escape repeatedly, and he just did not look comfortable...so I moved him back into the tank in the hopes that he would...maybe be excited to be back and go eat something? :wacko: ...and then the staying-on-land-and-not-being-able-to-sink issue occurred again.

Is it possible that he is having flotation issues on his own?! Could he be...scared of the depth of the water? It is around 15-20 gallons in a 30-gallon tank...
I just don't understand how he has gone at least two weeks acting like he is physically unable to remain at the bottom...and suddenly, he is down there acting perfectly normal.