Mudpuppy or Spanish newt

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rumblesushi

Feeder Fish
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Jul 18, 2005
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I bought a cute little Salamander today, almost 3 inches.

After looking at salamander pics, I've narrowed it down to either a mudpuppy or spanish newt.

It's grey/brown, slightly spotted, red gills and small eyes.

Sorry no pic, but at that size with those characteristics, what is it likely to be?

Either way I'm glad these 2 are totally aquatic.
 
Spanish newts lose their gills and have larger eyes and a more rounded head, here ia a head shot of the mudpuppy

mudpuppy.jpg
 
True mudpuppies, like the one guppy posted, are pretty expensive $30 plus. They get really big, and have a huge appetite. As well as what guppy stated. My old mudpuppy was nearly 16" and a pig! he would eat 3 worms a day at least. He also tried to eat a koi that was about 4" long. Watch out for attempt escapes. Post pics when you can.
 
thanks for the advice, it looks similar to juveniles of either. It has big red gills.

Only 10 minutes after putting it in the tank it started eating like a pig, eating sinking pellets and loads and loads of bloodworms. It's now twice as fat.

The tank is 28 degrees, about 82 I guess and he has a mastacembelus mastacembelus spiny eel as a tankmate.

I'll try and get a pic.
 
damn, the salamander has some kind of white film/fungus type stuff on his head?

HOw on earth do you treat a salamander? I assume it's not the same as fish, high temp and salt.

Please help Guppy or anyone :confused:
 
Don't raise the heat, it is already very high for most salamanders, when treating with salt use the short term bath method described in Stotty's link, here, I'll paste it,
Skin Mycosis
Skin fungal infections can occur in contaminated wounds, but are usually occur as a result of very poor husbandry conditions and in very stressed, immune suppressed animals. The skin has tufts of grey or white filaments. Recommended salt concentrations vary widely. I have only had one animal with skin fungus, a mutant axolotl that also had other problems. In addition to treatment, the habitat should be disinfected and remade. A quarantine habitat should be used until treatment is complete. This type of treatment is easiest to use for aquatic animals. Concentrations of salt up to 25 grams/liter have been used for brief treatments. Use the lowest effective salt concentration. Getting a terrestrial salamander to submerge in a salt solution voluntarily can be a big problem.

In a clean bowl mix a hypertonic saline solution. The key feature is a final amount of 6 gm/Liter NaCl (sodium chloride)
Place animal in the hypertonic saline for not more than 30 minutes.
Wearing examination gloves, gently remove fungus
Place in clean normal artifical pond water.
This can be repeated on several successive days, or every other day, for tenacious infections.

Both spanish newts and mudpuppies become vulnerable to infections and fungus at much above 70 F. optimum for them and axotlols (neotenous Ambystoma mexicanum and A. tigrinum) is 60-70 F.
The axotlol is a different but similar looking species, here is a pic

axolotlgreeting.jpg
 
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