Live plants-now i need some serious help

i don't know the first thing about plants. and i need to know if it is better that i have live plants in with my newt. what kind? how many? and how do i care for them? (lighting ,etc) could my newt catch things from the plant? thanks for any help~tiff

Live plants are good for the tank but one has to consider personal preference and how much time one has to take care of the tank. I keep live plants in my tank, but they have to be "pruned" every other week or so to keep them from getting too unruly. I have elodea, java fern, java moss and anubia in my tank and they are hearty plants. I rinse the plants off when I trim them so get rid of any sediment that might be on them although you don't want to get rid of the "good" bacteria in an established tank. I would rinse them off after getting them from the pet store (or wherever you buy them) before putting them in the tank. I use a fluorescent light source for them. How large is your tank? What kind of newts do you have- are they more aquatic or terrestrial? Someone recommended using a CO2 reactor with live plants to give them extra CO2 and help them grow but I haven't had the need to do that yet. Fake plants are definitely easier to have but you may find they don't look as nice. So, alot of the decisions come down to you. Alot of people here put pictures of their tank set-ups, which I have found to be helpful. You may want to check them out.

my tank is a 10 gallon, and i am planning on getting an oregon newt. my last one died 2 months ago. i just thought live plants were needed for newts. but fake plants would be easier for me.

I started my tank with fake plants. Now I prefer life plants and I like to tell myself the newts enjoy them more than the fake plants. I have pothos (devils ivy - very hardy, very easy to grow both in substrate or without substrate just in water), anubias, java fern and java moss. I tied the anubias, java fern and moss to pieces of driftwood.
I do a 1/3 water change every two weeks and at that time I take out the driftwood with plants and remove any dead leafs. Anubias, java fern and java moss are all low light plants and easy to grow. They really don't take much maintenance at all and the newts seem to enjoy them. Here a few picts to prove it:

anubias

anubias

pothos, java moss

anubias and java fern

pothos


I found that plastic suction cups (you can get them at a pet store/they are sold to hold plastic piping in aquariums) work very well in attaching pothos to the sides of the tank.