Illness/Sickness: Stress/Heat - A/C crash

[Lertsch]

I recently had the central air break and had to move my eastern newts, both adults and efts, over to my parents' basement as the temperature at my place started climbing into the high 70s. The newts were exposed to temperatures around 75 - 78F for around 8 - 16 hours before I was was aware of the issue able was able to put the aquatic adults into a temporary terrestrial setup.

I drove them over to my parents' with the A/C in the car blasting (let it run so the car run beforehand would be as cold as possible), which it barely an eight minute drive, and put them in the basement that stayed between 70 - 74F during the 2 days they were there and I was able to keep the humidity in their enclosures between 60% - 80%.

Once the A/C was fixed and I got the temperature at my place under 72F (and got the water temperature for the adults down to that as well) I once again pre-cooled the car quickly brought them all back. All seemed to have stayed healthy throughout the entire ordeal, but over next week I have lost several adults and efts that appeared quite healthy before being found deceased. No bloating or abnormal behavior, and all were eating.

Those that have died had redness on their underbelly that almost looked like a rash and their cloaca looked loose/floppy. Are those symptoms of organ failure due to exposure to high temperatures, or possible some other aliment they contracted due to stress that weakened their immune system? I'm not sure if I should be doing anything to prevent this happening the rest of my newt.

Any advice is welcome. Thank you.

 

[Canecorsonewt]

Sorry about your newts. I'm just writing so you're post isn't forgotten.

 

[Lertsch]

Thanks for the bump. I lost another older eft that was active, behaving normally and eating well. It's skin started to appear to be sticky, then around the hip? joints a redness started which spread to most if the underbelly. Very short time period between appearing healthy, showing symptoms, and passing.

I noticed these symptoms starting in another eft, which also seems to be acting normal. I have quarantined him and currently housing him on the door in the fridge. Not sure how best to proceed. One thing I'm going to do is gut my vivarium and replace the substrate and leaf little.

 

[jewett]

Do you have any exotic vets around you? Perhaps this is an infection that is spreading, and you could get some diagnostics done and possibly medications to help treat.

So sorry about this circumstance. Situations like this are frustrating and heartbreaking. Best of luck and I hope the deaths cease!

HJ

 

[Lertsch]

Update on old post.

Looked online and wasn't able to find an exotic vet in my area. Unfortunately the eft I put in the fridge did pass. Strangely, that was the last newt to catch or be affected by whatever it was. I did replace all the substrate in my terrestrial tank, but I don't really know if that mattered. I'm thrilled my newt plague stopped, but still very frustrated and upset that I lost newts and also that I don't really know what happened and what the cause was. Several that I lost I had for several years.

The only positive is that my adults started laying eggs in early September. Hopefully that goes well. Similar to some of the posts in the North American newt section I didn't end up with as many efts as I thought I would given the # of larvae I started with. This time I have a huge surplus of springtails and am trying to turn a smaller tank into a springtail buffet for the newly morphed efts when they come. I've had a lot of success culturing them in a shoe box sized plastic container with charcoal.