gclama
New member
Hi,
My name is Gabe and am originally from Miami, FL. So is my oldest Chinese fire-belled newt, Geezer, who is at least 17 years old now. I got him when I was 10 years old and he was at least a juvenile when I got him and his brother (he passed away about 7 years ago). I got them from a fish farm still in business in the horse country area of Miami. This guy has survived 3 cross country moves and has lived with me at every place I have lived since going away to college(a new place every year the last 9 years). I have to admit, I did not keep them in the best conditions up until the last year since I found this website. I had them in a tiny plastic 1 gallon tank with a gravel slope, a cave, fake plants, no filter, 2 inches of water, and fed them pellets. I changed the water every few weeks or when it looked gross. I have always used a dechlorinator in the water but I really didn't change it often enough and had no clue about water cycling. I think the other newt passed from poor care, diet, and I didn't have the cave for them to hide at that time, so stress too. After finding this website, I am happy to say Geezer and his new buddy I purchased from Reptiles N Critters in October '14, Stubs, are in a nice big 10 gallon tank with a filter, several live plants, a floating dock, a wooden log, rocks, and much deeper water for Geezer to swim around in. Stubs is still in the terrestrial stage and stays burrowed in his sphagnum moss on the dock. I have been trying to make him more aquatic and I think it's slowly working. I also have been using a varied diet of live waxworms and mealworms, and frozen bloodworms. I have read that mealworms have a harder exoskeleton and not much fat so I bought waxworms last night and wow, they really do love them. Geezer really likes having live food and plants in his life now. When I got Stubs, the container he was in said he was being fed live pinhead crickets. I tried a couple packages of crickets and Geezer liked hunting them and so did Stubs but they are just so hard to catch and feed to them so I gave those up. Stubs has adjusted to the hand feeding of bloodworms but he doesn't like it as a staple and needs the live wriggly food regularly.
Thank you for reading my wall of text. Me and my newts are really glad we found Caudata.org. It's nice to have a source of information and a community of other Amphibian lovers like this. People that don't own one just don't get it. Geezer would like to say live long and prosper.
My name is Gabe and am originally from Miami, FL. So is my oldest Chinese fire-belled newt, Geezer, who is at least 17 years old now. I got him when I was 10 years old and he was at least a juvenile when I got him and his brother (he passed away about 7 years ago). I got them from a fish farm still in business in the horse country area of Miami. This guy has survived 3 cross country moves and has lived with me at every place I have lived since going away to college(a new place every year the last 9 years). I have to admit, I did not keep them in the best conditions up until the last year since I found this website. I had them in a tiny plastic 1 gallon tank with a gravel slope, a cave, fake plants, no filter, 2 inches of water, and fed them pellets. I changed the water every few weeks or when it looked gross. I have always used a dechlorinator in the water but I really didn't change it often enough and had no clue about water cycling. I think the other newt passed from poor care, diet, and I didn't have the cave for them to hide at that time, so stress too. After finding this website, I am happy to say Geezer and his new buddy I purchased from Reptiles N Critters in October '14, Stubs, are in a nice big 10 gallon tank with a filter, several live plants, a floating dock, a wooden log, rocks, and much deeper water for Geezer to swim around in. Stubs is still in the terrestrial stage and stays burrowed in his sphagnum moss on the dock. I have been trying to make him more aquatic and I think it's slowly working. I also have been using a varied diet of live waxworms and mealworms, and frozen bloodworms. I have read that mealworms have a harder exoskeleton and not much fat so I bought waxworms last night and wow, they really do love them. Geezer really likes having live food and plants in his life now. When I got Stubs, the container he was in said he was being fed live pinhead crickets. I tried a couple packages of crickets and Geezer liked hunting them and so did Stubs but they are just so hard to catch and feed to them so I gave those up. Stubs has adjusted to the hand feeding of bloodworms but he doesn't like it as a staple and needs the live wriggly food regularly.
Thank you for reading my wall of text. Me and my newts are really glad we found Caudata.org. It's nice to have a source of information and a community of other Amphibian lovers like this. People that don't own one just don't get it. Geezer would like to say live long and prosper.
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