Why did my salamander die. Pics provided

[Walt3737]

So I finally got myself a tiger salamander after wanting and looking for a long time. I bught a beautiful juvenile texas barred from a guy in PA on faunaclassifieds.com. I recieved him about 2 weeks ago. He was healthy and active and ate like a champ for almost the whole 2 weeks. I fed him dusted crickets and red wrigglers.
So on Saturday I noticed he was acting strangely. He would not take food. Although he ate 2 crickets on friday so I wasn't concerned. I went out Saturday and got home at night and noticed more strange behavior as well as what looked like bloating. I sprayed him down real good for the second time of the day. But I was still worried so I put him in a small tubaware with a little declorinated water. The tubaware was about the length of his body. As soon as I put him in he freaked out, started contorting his body back and forth with his mouth open. I returned him to his tank and then got a small plastic tank which was bigger because I wanted him to soak in some water. I put paper towels this time with water. He seemed fine and was walking a little so I left him for an hour and checked again. This time there was 2 spots of what had to be blood. 2 red spots and one of them had some kind of physical matter in it. Didnt look like poop but I don't know.
So i changed the paper towel and water and added some moss. I checked his belly for any cuts or sores and there was nothing. So I left him for the night. He seemed ok his eyes were open and he was somewhat responsive. Needless to say sunday morning he was dead. He went from eating on friday to dead on Sunday morning. I am still beside myself about this.
One very important detail is his/her private part. On Sunday when I looked his body over the genitalia was very red. I opened it up and inside looked infected, all red. Im guessing he pooped or peed blood the night before.
His setup was all coconut fiber with moss on top. I misted him daily multiple times with declorinated water. He also had a log hide in his tank as well as isopods and springtails. The temp was kept between the low 60s to 72 at the most.
I just don't understand. I successfully kept a spotted salamander for 8 years. As well as many different frogs and reptiles. I've had pets my whole life. I need to know what went wrong. Please help me learn from this. I provided pics of his underside where it looks infected. Thank you for reading.

 

[Walt3737]

One more thing to ad. Might not matter but I want to provide all the details. I currently have a fruit fly infestation in my reptile room. And it seemed they set up shop in his tank possibly laying eggs in the substrate. Probably doesn't matter though.

 

[michael]

It's tough to say. Some possible problems could be overfeeding, to much humidity, or to warm. Are you sure the fruit fly infestation isn't fungus flies? My guess is if it was fed less and in a setup with lower humidity in some areas it would have done better.

 

[MnGuy]

I'm sorry to hear about the death. It's hard to say without a necropsy. There could be many reasons.

I know I've read that people feed red wigglers to their amphibians, but I keep garter snakes and everything I read says not to feed them to snakes because they are toxic. I have no idea if that could be true for amphibians.

Here's an article about red wigglers as they pertain to snakes:

Feeding Earthworms: Red Wigglers vs. Nightcrawlers
Red wigglers — the worms used in composting — are plentiful and easy to raise. But you can’t use them to feed your garter snakes; here’s why.
By Jonathan Crowe
Feeding earthworms to garter snakes is complicated by the fact that there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of earthworms, only one of which is safe to use.

Red wigglers (Eisenia foetida) are the worms used in vermicomposting, so they’re plentiful and easy to raise in captivity. But if the prospect of a limitless supply of worms fed on garbage scraps sounds too good to be true, it is. You can’t use them.

People are disappointed to hear this, and they ask why, particularly since they may have used red wigglers without incident as food for aquatic turtles (as one friend told me), or have managed to feed them to snakes without any problems.

This is compounded by the unclear advice given by pet manuals, many of which simply don’t make a distinction between red wigglers and other worms. Perlowin (2005) simply says they taste bad: “[A]void red worms (also called dung worms), which are particularly foul tasting to these snakes” (p. 38).1 Neil Ford (in Rossman, Ford and Seigel, 1996), on the other hand, says they’re a bit more than yucky: “Some bait worms (Eisenia, sold as ‘red wigglers’) are toxic” (p. 121).

Whether they’re reported to be toxic or simply taste bad, red wigglers, it seems, ought to be avoided. But understanding why is important: advice won’t necessarily be followed if it isn’t backed up with some evidence. Fortunately, some anecdotal evidence does exist.

On February 9, 2006, biology professor and snake ethologist Lani Lyman-Henley wrote the following message to the gartersnake mailing list:

I can attest to the toxicity [of red wigglers] — I saw its effects myself on a pretty large scale in about 1989.

I was told by our lab manager (an excellent herpetoculturist and published biologist herself) that she did find documentation (seconded by our vet at the time, also published in reptile veterinary work) that Eisenia species (compost worms, red wigglers) can produce coelomic fluids toxic to snakes (and I’m sure other creatures). It appears to be derived from their diet, but we never isolated how — we actually raised our own for some time, but gave up on pursuing this since it was just too risky and there were safe worm food sources available (any Lumbricoid “leaf worms” are small versions of nightcrawlers that are just right for smaller snakes, and most of the soil worms you’ll find are relatives).

I don’t really want to remember the dozens of baby snakes that literally puked themselves to death on just one meal of toxic worms … even though we’d had many safe meals, not knowing what caused the one batch (same supplier, same packaged diet) to be so much more toxic, we didn’t want to risk it happening again.

So red wigglers’ toxicity may depend on their diet. If so, unless you can control their diet and know exactly what in that diet can cause toxicity, you’re better off using other worms. If not, you’re better off using other worms in any event.

As Lani mentioned in her message, the worms you do want to use are nightcrawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) and related species, whether they’re known as leaf worms, dew worms or garden worms. These are the earthworms you see on the sidewalk when it rains, the earthworms you dig up in your garden, and the nightcrawlers you buy from the bait shop. (Note, though, that red wigglers may occasionally be sold as trout bait.)

Though these worms are much safer to use as food, they’re a lot harder to keep. For one thing, they seem to be next to impossible to cultivate: all the worms offered for sale are collected from the wild — more problematically, many of them are reportedly collected from golf course lawns, which means they may well be chock-full of pesticides. And they thrive on lower temperatures: you need to keep them in the refrigerator.

Supply is another issue: nightcrawlers are harder to get. You can buy red wigglers by the pound, but where I live, nightcrawlers are sold by the dozen (they cost $2.75 per dozen around here). And those sold by bait stores are invariably very large: too large for small garter snakes, especially since large nightcrawlers are muscular enough to crawl back out of the mouths of garter snakes as long as 40 or 50 cm. Smaller worms must be collected from gardens, sidewalks or roads — but, in the case of sidewalks and roads, environmental pollution is a real issue. And collecting requires sustained effort: even a single snake can eat a lot of worms; they’re not nearly as nutritious (or as filling) as vertebrate prey.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that even nightcrawlers can be vectors for internal parasites. There is always a risk in using earthworms as garter snake food; some worms are simply much riskier than others.

Note

1. Perlowin also says to “[o]ffer common earthworms rather than night crawlers [sic],” a distinction I find quite baffling. Nor does he explain why nightcrawlers should be avoided.

References
Lyman-Henley, Lani. 2006. E-mail to gartersnake mailing list.
Perlowin, David. 2005. Garter and Water Snakes. Irvine CA: Advanced Vivarium Systems.
Rossman, Douglas A., Neil B. Ford and Richard A. Siegel. 1996. The Garter Snakes: Evolution and Ecology. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

 

[Walt3737]

It's tough to say. Some possible problems could be overfeeding, to much humidity, or to warm. Are you sure the fruit fly infestation isn't fungus flies? My guess is if it was fed less and in a setup with lower humidity in some areas it would have done better.

Yes they are definitely fruit flies. I've seen them before , its do to my geckos eating fruit and me forgetting to take out left over food or it falling on the floor of the terrarium.
The temp never reached over 70 really, on really hot days maybe 71 72. Mostly mid 60s. I fed him every other day mostly. There was a couple days that he ate in a row but the third day no food.

 

[Walt3737]

I'm sorry to hear about the death. It's hard to say without a necropsy. There could be many reasons.

I know I've read that people feed red wigglers to their amphibians, but I keep garter snakes and everything I read says not to feed them to snakes because they are toxic. I have no idea if that could be true for amphibians.

Here's an article about red wigglers as they pertain to snakes:

Feeding Earthworms: Red Wigglers vs. Nightcrawlers
Red wigglers — the worms used in composting — are plentiful and easy to raise. But you can’t use them to feed your garter snakes; here’s why.
By Jonathan Crowe
Feeding earthworms to garter snakes is complicated by the fact that there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of earthworms, only one of which is safe to use.

Red wigglers (Eisenia foetida) are the worms used in vermicomposting, so they’re plentiful and easy to raise in captivity. But if the prospect of a limitless supply of worms fed on garbage scraps sounds too good to be true, it is. You can’t use them.

People are disappointed to hear this, and they ask why, particularly since they may have used red wigglers without incident as food for aquatic turtles (as one friend told me), or have managed to feed them to snakes without any problems.

This is compounded by the unclear advice given by pet manuals, many of which simply don’t make a distinction between red wigglers and other worms. Perlowin (2005) simply says they taste bad: “[A]void red worms (also called dung worms), which are particularly foul tasting to these snakes” (p. 38).1 Neil Ford (in Rossman, Ford and Seigel, 1996), on the other hand, says they’re a bit more than yucky: “Some bait worms (Eisenia, sold as ‘red wigglers’) are toxic” (p. 121).

Whether they’re reported to be toxic or simply taste bad, red wigglers, it seems, ought to be avoided. But understanding why is important: advice won’t necessarily be followed if it isn’t backed up with some evidence. Fortunately, some anecdotal evidence does exist.

On February 9, 2006, biology professor and snake ethologist Lani Lyman-Henley wrote the following message to the gartersnake mailing list:




So red wigglers’ toxicity may depend on their diet. If so, unless you can control their diet and know exactly what in that diet can cause toxicity, you’re better off using other worms. If not, you’re better off using other worms in any event.

As Lani mentioned in her message, the worms you do want to use are nightcrawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) and related species, whether they’re known as leaf worms, dew worms or garden worms. These are the earthworms you see on the sidewalk when it rains, the earthworms you dig up in your garden, and the nightcrawlers you buy from the bait shop. (Note, though, that red wigglers may occasionally be sold as trout bait.)

Though these worms are much safer to use as food, they’re a lot harder to keep. For one thing, they seem to be next to impossible to cultivate: all the worms offered for sale are collected from the wild — more problematically, many of them are reportedly collected from golf course lawns, which means they may well be chock-full of pesticides. And they thrive on lower temperatures: you need to keep them in the refrigerator.

Supply is another issue: nightcrawlers are harder to get. You can buy red wigglers by the pound, but where I live, nightcrawlers are sold by the dozen (they cost $2.75 per dozen around here). And those sold by bait stores are invariably very large: too large for small garter snakes, especially since large nightcrawlers are muscular enough to crawl back out of the mouths of garter snakes as long as 40 or 50 cm. Smaller worms must be collected from gardens, sidewalks or roads — but, in the case of sidewalks and roads, environmental pollution is a real issue. And collecting requires sustained effort: even a single snake can eat a lot of worms; they’re not nearly as nutritious (or as filling) as vertebrate prey.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that even nightcrawlers can be vectors for internal parasites. There is always a risk in using earthworms as garter snake food; some worms are simply much riskier than others.

Note

1. Perlowin also says to “[o]ffer common earthworms rather than night crawlers [sic],” a distinction I find quite baffling. Nor does he explain why nightcrawlers should be avoided.

References
Lyman-Henley, Lani. 2006. E-mail to gartersnake mailing list.
Perlowin, David. 2005. Garter and Water Snakes. Irvine CA: Advanced Vivarium Systems.
Rossman, Douglas A., Neil B. Ford and Richard A. Siegel. 1996. The Garter Snakes: Evolution and Ecology. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Yes I have come across this. But I was advised by someone who keeps tiger salamanders that he fed red wrigglers for extended periods of time with no problems. So he says. But anyway he mostly ate crickets.