New home ideas please for Taricha granulosa

[Corey]

I'll receiving four Taricha granulosa within the next few day and I need some ideas for an aquarium for them. I can't seem to find any examples of housing for them. I've searched for quite a while and finally found some. Now it's time to do a nice set up to keep them happy for a long time. Any ideas?

[Jan]

You'll find the basic housing requirements for the species in this article: Caudata Culture Species Entry - Taricha granulosa.

[Rodrigo]

To be honest, the time for that was well before you ordered the newts. Now you won´t be able to have a fully cycled tank before they arrive and the process will have to be done with the newts inside which could potentially cause them stress and given that they´ll be stressed already because of the shipping, this is unfortunate. Read Jan´s link, but also the CC articles about cycling a tank, water quality, etc. If you are careful, you won´t have any trouble.

[Elliott]

Well get a 15-20 gallon long then put gravel at the bottom, then get something like rocks or a turtle dock to make some land, then add a filter, add plants, rocks, or wood for decoration. Good luck with you new newts




P.S Hope your new newts live a long time.

[Rodrigo]

Gravel is not a good idea. Sand or a bare bottom are far better options. The filter will be completely redundant if you have enough live plants and this is preferable as filters produce heat and the current may ot be apreciated by the newts.

[spoons]

Originally Posted by Azhael

Gravel is not a good idea. Sand or a bare bottom are far better options. The filter will be completely redundant if you have enough live plants and this is preferable as filters produce heat and the current may ot be apreciated by the newts.

i'm with rodrigo on this, gravel is bad,filters are bad, live plants are good! watch the levels of nitrates and nitrites at the beginning of your tank cycle, and all should be good... one thing to mention, don't feed them waxmoth larvae, they get addicted to them and they can't digest them!
mine prefer deep water with some hiding places on their land area for when they are very full of food :)

[taricha29]

I like to make islands with variously sized pyrex dishes (1-2" deep). I fill 3 or 4 jars with with sand or smooth rocks to anchor them down, and use them as columns to support the dish. The dish is filled with sand (I actually have gravel in mine, since I feed the newts in the water), live moss, and plants I've collected from pond edges (the dish will stay pretty waterlogged, I occasionally siphon water out with a turkey baster). I keep the water level to just below the edge of the dish and drape some java moss over the edge for easier access. Finally, I keep the tank bottom bare with the addition of java moss and ferns. I usually rinse the dishes out when I do a water change. The newts spend a lot of time on land, and love climbing up into the plants.