Ipod went for a dive in full glass of Diet Coke

OK, so the story starts at my friends house on a monday, and short story short i let go too soon and my Ipod touch (64GB 3rd Gen) fell straight into a glass of diet coke. It fell in and was completely submerged for about 2-3 seconds before i snatched it out and then attempted to turn it off as i saw the screen slowly dim out and i couldn't see it. we put it in rice for an hour and a half (i know they say a week) and took it home, put it in a bag of rice for another 2 days. take it out friday the same week and i see the apple logo as i turned it on (probably not the best idea) and everything works, except for the LED backlight. i can adjust the brightness meter but it does nothing, and for the first few hours every now and then the screen would freakout like... the bottom half of the screen would be scrambled up lines vertically facing, but it has done nothing else that shows it's damaged otherwise. my question is, based off of this, what could be wrong with it, and how to fix it without burning my wallet out, i am a college student after all and i cant afford to buy a new ipod. My last note would be, if i turned it off completely, put it in water, kinda shook it around in there for a few seconds then rice again... would it get rid of the sugar that might still be present inside?

P.S. i've done some looking around at people's questions like this, and have had no luck anywhere, so not to be rude but i'd like people to post helpful info that will encourage progress 🙂 thanks!