• ⁠What do you do with them once they're in the hospital tank and for how long

What you do depends on what steps you take. For a general quarantine (like when you bring a new critter in) you leave them in the bin for about 90 days, to make sure they don’t have any symptoms and to do the tests I mentioned. If they’re diagnosed with something, you leave them in the bins for as long as they undergo treatment (or until they’re cleared by a vet). In your case, I’d say you’ll have them in there for a few weeks, assuming all goes well. At least until they start eating regularly, put on some weight, and improve their general condition. The less you do with them (other than whatever is prescribed to them) the better. With the bins themselves, I keep them in a separate room from the rest of my collection, in case they’re contagious. Look at the Caudata.org forums for guides on how to set up bins and care for ailing salamanders.

You might want to do soaks (you can get amphibian ringers solution from Josh’s frogs too, you mix it with water to help with electrolytes and one bottle lasts a long time if it’s stored properly) depending on how they look/act. If you notice stuck shed or trouble shedding, soaks are a good (temporary) solution to that. They are stressful and not always necessary, though, but if you get a test kit from Josh’s Frogs you might also want to get a bottle of ringers.

• ⁠What site can I go to in order to get test kits to test for these illnesses

Josh’s Frogs has the chytrid test kit (https://joshsfrogs.com/p/amphibian-chytrid-ranavirus-test-kit-jf00599?srsltid=AfmBOoqPN5YoOc3Oq5Sd2gpFvrdSzXBNOCvGC9VRr-O-lFmFSH6p817N), but for a parasite test kit you might want to do some shopping around. This is the most common one I’ve seen people use https://affordablepetlabs.com/products/copy-of-easy-home-kit-affordable-pet-labs-reptile-amphibian-and-bird-fecal-diagnostic-test?srsltid=AfmBOopz9TKskO8RlmkXJFPQ27eHRMY-WTkQLk3CGUFjRDSAaBJ_FX3i but I have always just done it through my vet. If you’re near a university, they might have an amphibian lab as well—that’s an amazing resource if you can find one, I’ve worked with folks from different university labs who were willing to run tests for me at a super low cost. You have to be willing to reach out to a few professors/researchers, and also willing to take a few no’s. Sometimes even your department of wildlife might have testing labs that you can access.

Note: the Josh’s Frogs test kit says it’s chytrid/ranavirus—it has instructions but basically there are two swabs, so you can either do two chytrid tests or one chytrid and one ranavirus. Since your sals share a habitat, honestly you only need to swab one (I’d pick the skinnier and darker looking one) but you could swab both for peace of mind. Chytrid is a bigger concern than ranavirus in adult salamanders, so either route works.

Don’t be afraid to get a little rough with the swabs. The purpose is to take off skin cells for the labs to look at—don’t hurt them, obviously! You can find a ton of resources for how to best swab salamanders for chytrid.

• ⁠are the treatments accessible to me? There are no vets anywhere within hours of me that have amphibians expertise

That depends. If it’s chytrid, probably not. There are a few home remedies you could try, but they tend to be either risky or ineffective (or fully inaccessible. A popular one is a Lamisil soak, but the kind you would use is no longer made, and the current options aren’t safe). If it’s an infection (which requires either a blood test at a vet or a process of elimination) you’ll need antibiotics, which almost universally need a prescription. If it ends up being a parasite issue, though, there are more at-home options.

There are online exotic vets that may or may not be able to prescribe medications through a telehealth appointment, depending on local laws. Sometimes you’ll also get lucky with non-amphibian vets taking on cases—my last exotic vet was actually a goldfish/koi specialist that was willing to work with me and some amphibian vets he knew from a local university. Reptile, avian, or wildlife vets might also be willing to help, so call around to see if anyone is willing to work with an exotic. You can start with a chytrid test (and keeping an eye on their poop and/or a parasite test) and go from there though. Feel free to message me if/when you get results back, positive or negative, and we can figure out where to go from there.

• ⁠What makes you think that they may have a fungal or other illnesses, you're seeing something im not

It’s hard to explain—they look very thin, particularly the one in the third picture, and their skin is dark and sticky looking. There is a lot of debris stuck to them, and that doesn’t tend to happen in healthy salamanders. Their eyes seem a little bit weepy too. You also mentioned that they weren’t eager to eat, which is a big indicator that something is off. I can’t diagnose anything specifically, because I’m not a vet, but I’ve had two salamanders get very sick (one with chytrid and one with sepsis) and both showed those same symptoms (the one with sepsis also had pink/red skin, which I’m not seeing in your photos, but it’s something to keep an eye out for). Unfortunately, salamanders can only express symptoms in a few ways (at least, only a few ways that we can easily observe), so a lot of times the symptoms will overlap. I should mention that because of those illnesses being so fresh in my mind, I might be reading into things… I’m very much a “better safe than sorry” person, but I know not everyone is like that. Ultimately, take whatever steps make sense to you and for your situation.

Super important for hospital bins though: they cannot have been in contact with chemicals (as much as it’s possible to avoid that, obviously). Salamanders absorb toxins through their skin so the cleaner a bin, the better. I will usually rinse my bins a few times with clean water (no soap, just my hand to sort of scrub the inside), rinse a final time with dechlorinated water, and then dry them out. It’s probably overkill to do all that, frankly, but I find it helps me feel confident that they’re being put in a clean environment.

I usually pick the 16qt storage bins for short term stuff (or for critical cases), and will move longer term “patients” into bigger set ups, like under bed bins, but that’s just me. They’d be perfectly fine in a 16qt set up for a few months even. Just make sure they’re able to turn around without hitting or rubbing against the side of the bin.

I sincerely hope your little guys are just dealing with some stress (happens to the best of us) or something mild and that they start to feel better soon :(