New spanish sharp ribbed newts

i saved 8 Juvenile spanish sharp ribbed newts from a pet shop they were telling people that they will eat fist food and were fully quatic so i saved them but it cost me £25 for them and £35 for getting a tank and heater and filter for the 4cm Juveniles. and i do not no haw big of a tank they will need when they are adults and stuff like info on breeding them as well
and this is there tank but it has a heater and a filter naw
and that is the size of the baby newts to the tank. i would have got a better tank for them but had no idea i was going to get them

(Message edited by fire_salamander_breeder on January 11, 2007)

first of all take that heater out...They do NOT need a heater and you could kill them :S
If the temps are too high they will die...
As for the food....you mean fish food? i´d be really really surprised if they took fish food man haha
Try with chopped earthworms or bloodworms. As far as i know they are really good eaters so you shouldn´t have problems.
Oh..take a look at the photos..they don´t work.
anyway, good luck with them!

This will probably be quite useful to you:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Pleurodeles/P_waltl.shtml

You should have no need for the heater, so if you can, return it. These newts thrive at temperatures near or under 21C. If your house is quite cool, then the heater could be used to maintain the temperature of the eggs (which appears to be important.) I'll reiterate that you should look over the care sheet.

I hope that helps. In the future if you check over your post for spelling and grammar that would be extremely useful for those of us replying.

thanks i no they do not eat fish food thats wy i saved them and i have the heater at 20C and i no about amphibians i have fire salamanders and tiger salamanders and alpine newts so these should not be to hard to keep but thanks for the info and i need to no haw big dose a tank need to be for 8 adults i think it is something like 5ft but i do not no for shore

oh ok..i guess i just misanderstood, sorry
anyway i would still take the heater out...20º is ok but those can fail and not been necessary why take the risk?
Also the water around the heater will be warmer and they may not like it. just a suggestion though.
Pretty collection you have, don´t u? you should post some pics of those.
I don´t own any pleurodeles but they do need space...and 8 adults are a lot of adults, so that would be a really big aquarium. You can always split them in two so don´t worry about that now, they are still morphs.

yes but i have tropical plants in the tank for them to hide in and i do not want them to die i spent £20 on them

When the tropical plants die, don't replace them. They usually slowly die, even at 20C, unless you supplement with fertilizer and CO2, which you should NOT do with newts in the tank. And then you can get rid of the heater. You claim to know about amphibians, but if this is true I'm really surprised that you bought a heater and tropical plants for newts.

I would say you need at least a 4-foot tank for 8 young adults. A larger tank will eventually be needed, as they continue to grow throughout adulthood. If you don't want to have a huge tank, you may be able to sell one or two adult pairs after they mature and you can ID the sexes.

no i was going to get fish that day and i had all the stuff for tropical fish the day before and i just thought that if there spanish then its ok but i did not no mutch about them i just had to save them from starving. i do stuff like fire salamanders and tiger salamanders i rarely keep newts so thats wy i did not no mutch about them. i did have alpine newts but there not same

i have my babies in a Rearing Containers naw. and split them into groups of 4. 4 in 1 rearing Container for naw
i have 2 containers so i will try and get some more

ok, so for the benefit of all of us who are trying to keep live plants with newts, what in tarnation do we do??
* don't use substrate or co2?
* don't use tropical plants?
maybe i could use normal pond weed from my own garden pond as this is used to cold temperatures, are there any specific species of plant that work best, for egg laying etc?
do they need any kind of food or will they just live in the gravel?
should i use gravel or sand?
also one of the logs (which a scrubbed and boiled thuroughly) is begining to get a white fluff of mold or something on it... this could be down to the UV light i have on the tank?
it seems like never ending task , but i want my newts to be the most happy they can be..., please could u give a detailed description of everything,
i really do appreciate the time u give to people (talking to jennifer)