Tim Wright, I completely disagree with you. Yes, okay, so newts have regeneration. But the leg didn't randomly fall of for no reason. If you can't fix the problem that caused the foot to fall off in the first place, then the conditions will not be good enough for the leg to regrow.
newt-guy, your newts leg will not grow back and be healthy until the problem is fixed.
I don't know anything about the filter you have, but a "mini" might be too small for a ten gallon tank (anyone else have any thoughts on this?)
Feeding every morning is excessive and is surely leaving behind wastes that are ruining your water quality.
Piling rocks up is an easy way to provide land, but it's just deeper gravel that allows uneaten food and waste to get deeper in the gravel making it even more of a mess to clean up. I would recommend getting a larger rock or some nice live plants (or both would be great!) for your newt to climb out on. I would also recommend a feeding dish.
Your newt only needs to be fed every two or three days at the most.
It will be fine if the newt gets dry. Many of these newts live terrestrially at stages of their life. However, if your newt thinks the water is bad, he won't want to go back in. I have a large rock in my c.o. tank that the water just barely covers so that she can get up on the rock to rest and be "out" of the water, but it still stays a little wet.
Summary?
- You can't feed that often and have gravel that deep. Doing either on it's own is bad as well.
- Get a feeding dish so you can monitor leftovers.
- If you get something better to provide a land area, you could also raise the water level a bit.
- I'm not sure about that filter.
Anyway, don't expect that if your newt is sick it will simply get better. Newts have the wonderful capability of regeneration, but they have to have proper conditions before that will work. It's like if you break your leg...sure, it will heal. But don't you think it would be a good idea to see a doctor about it?