My Chinese fire belly newts experience

Hello,

I'm relatively new to keeping newts though I used to have a few when I was younger, and that was before the Internet so I only had pet shop advice, and that's usually spotty at best.

I recently decided to do away with my aquarium and get some newts, I thought they would be more fun to watch then my fish, and so far, they have been. I had some problems along the way, some I've solved, some I haven't but I thought I would share my experience.

I have a 30 long. I started with 3 Chinese fire belly newts. I bought them from a local pet store (the only one that had any) and they were in pretty bad shape when I got them. I had read that they can choke on small gravel so I removed all the fish tank gravel and bought some river stone, it's kind of like pea gravel but slightly larger with the average stone being at least a half inch in diameter. I stacked up some large rocks on one side and have a small submersible pump that I was using to create a water feature using one of those simulated stone feeding bowls. I placed a fake leafy plant in the bowl and let the water run into the bowl and then it flowed like a waterfall down the rocks and into the water. I filled the aquarium a little more than half full with water and added some other plastic plants. I cycled the tank using some ghost shrimp and a few of my old fish. I added my newts and here's where my problems started.

The newts would not stay in the water, the pretty much lived on the leafy plant and only entered the water when they wanted to move to another "land" area of the tank (I had wrapped some plastic ivy around the air lines and they would climb on it). I let this go for about 3 weeks thinking maybe they were stressed or the water conditions were off (tested fine). EVERYTHING I've read said to keep the temperature between 64F-70F so I never ran a heater in it and the temp was about 68F-72F. I eventually removed the rocks and the plant and filled the tank up to about 80% full thinking that maybe they just needed a little help getting used to the water. Well, I was wrong; they all stayed either on top of the ivy or clung to the walls to avoid the water. I tested and tested again, water was OK. As a last ditch effort I talked to the pets store guy and told him the problems I was having and he told me to raise the temperature to 74F-78F but never above 83F. This totally went against everything I've read on this and other sites but I figured I'd give it a try so I put a heater in and raised the temperature one click per day (about 2 degrees). When I got to 76F they started loving the water. I was so happy.

Last night I got them all in the water and was able to feed them some blackworms and they loved it! They all ate (I was worried about some). They are now housed with 3 more Chinese fire bellies 2 African dwarf frogs, a couple hardy fish and a female fiddler crab and they all seem to be doing well.

So, now for some questions.

1. Am I ok having them at 76F? I think I may turn it down to 72F-74F in the summer to keep them cool, the room they are in has A/C but it's in the top part of my house and it gets up to 80-82 during the day up there.

2. What are some good live plants? I like the plastic ones but if the real ones aren't too much trouble I would like to try some.

3. Is an under gravel filter enough for this setup?

4. How much land to they need. Currently there are some of the ivy that breaks the surface that they tend to hang out on and I put a few floating pieces of wood in there.

Thanks for all the information. I really enjoy the site and hope to move up to some more exotic species in the future.

76F is too high for the newts. It must be lower than 74F at all time. Preferably at the mid to high 60F.

Good live plants include pathos, Elodea, and Java Moss. Any hardy and cold water tolerating plants will do.

Under gravel is actually useless. It helps only to get the waste to stay at the bottom of the tank. but it does not help to reduce the harmful chemical in the tank. It might be better to get a slow filter that does not create strong current. But the best is still to change water frequently (1/2 each week) and an established nitrogen cycle.

The land area should be enough. Fire belly newt tend to be more aquatic once they are established.

But there is one thing I am more concerned. Mixing species is very bad to your newts. you are currently making your tank overloaded with animals. Your 30 long tank? (gallons)?? is best only to host the 6 newts and no more. Fire belly newts can be poison to other animal when ingested.

Ian is right, mike. You were actually doing most things right before you talked to the pet store guy. If your fire belly newts are small, then they might still be juvenile's and thus want to be half terrestrial. There's a bit of a trick to forcing them to go aquatic though. Offer only land area that is partially out of the water. This way, they can get up on the land to rest, but not get fully dry. This will make them want to be more aquatic than terrestrial (which most keepers prefer.)

Also, you MUST remove the other pets from the tank. ESPECIALLY the crab! Ahh! pinch pinch! The frogs and the fish really should be removed too. See this page of species mixing disasters: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Mixing_disasters.shtml

If you haven't seen them already, here is the full page of wonderful articles available on this site. Check them out and see if anything else looks interesting to you: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/articles.shtml

Good luck with your newts. And another bit of advice, you were right in the first place not trusting the pet store people...they're always wrong. One lady once told me that newts were found only along the equator and the warmer I could keep it the better. My reply? ...too lengthy to post here. Lol.

I don't know about the floating wood, you can check this setup out, its a good one for cynops species http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/13/62654.html?1147220028

A healthy well-established CFB can live at 76F, but I wouldn't recommend it long-term and I especially wouldn't recommend it for animals that just came from the shop. I'm not totally surprised that raising the temp would make them aquatic. However, I think this temperature is risky for newts that just came from the pet shop. They often arrive stressed, and for caudates, colder temp is less stressful. It's good that you got them eating, but I'd still suggest turning down the heat. They will probably still stay in the water and continue to eat at the cooler temp.

What kind of fish do you have with them?

I don't want to disagree with you Ian, but do you think 50% is too much. Here's a little something from caudata culture.

"Never do a "total" water change unless absolutely necessary. This is stressful to any aquatic animal. A good schedule for partial water changes is 10% every week or 20% every two weeks. If you are testing for ammonia, do the test just before doing the water change. When you replace water that is lost to evaporation, this amount does NOT count toward the required water changes."

I never tried 10% or 20%, but I guess probably have no harm to the animals. But considering the hardiness of Chinese FBN, 50% should be fine as well. But maybe for other more sensitive amphibian then that might be hard to say.

I have been doing 50% waterchanges everyweek and my newts are still breeding crazily. So I guess they will not be stressed. Since if they do, they probably wont breed and will show sign of stress, such as climbing glass wall, hiding or go on land.

And since I do water change that frequently, everyweek with 50%, the water quality should be very stable. Unlike a water changes that is once per month for 100%. Then that will be a big changes.

Thanks for the concern, by the way. 50% water change is my practice adapted from aquarium plant hobby which is the suggested water change amount to control green algae growth.

Thanks for all the reply's.

I'm slowly lowering the temperature over the next few days. These guy's aren't straight from the pet shop though, I've had them for almost 2 months. All the changes I make are slowly over time as to not stress or shock them. I'm not exactly sure of the fish I have. one is a small barb and I think the other is a tetra of some sort, both very passive fish, I've watched them for hours, both with and without the lights and they never mess with the newts, about the only problem I have is that they are alot better at catching the blackworms than the newts.

The crab is a female fiddler and has very tiny claws, well actually it only has one but I felt bad for it so I decided to take it. It pretty much stays away from the newts. I've kept female fiddlers with firebellys before and never had a problem as long as they have a place to hide.

The dwarf frogs are the same. They don't seem to bother the newts and are very small. I read the linked hazards article and it appears that the frogs can harm the newts. I have a small beta tank for my daughter so I think I may move the frogs out if I see any signs of danger.

I also keep some ghost shrip in there. I'm pretty sure the newts and frogs are eating the smaller ones and that's fine with me, that's what they are for.

The biggest danger to the newts seem to be other newts, a couple times during feeding I've watched a newt mistake another newt's hand for a worm and bite it up to it's armpit but the newts have been able to wiggle away without any visable harm.

I have a question about blackworms. I heard that they can live in the substrate and under the undergravel filter plates. is that true, and if so, do they breed under there? can I have a blackworm culture growing in my newt tank?

Thanks again for all the comments.

snip "I've kept female fiddlers with firebellys before and never had a problem as long as they have a place to hide." Not to be rude, but how long did those firebellies live? Their normal lifespan is often 10+ years. I confess that I have also briefly kept fiddler crabs with newts, but the crabs didn't live very long compared to the newts. And the newts were 100% aquatic so there was no possible interaction. It's not something I would do again though.

Yes, blackworms will get down under the filter plate, possibly in large numbers. They reproduce slowly (too slowly to be practical to culture them). The problem is that they add to the total bioload of the tank, just like any animal does (they eat, they produce waste). So if you aren't careful, you could overpopulate the tank and have ammonia problems perhaps without realizing it. I would say that live blackworms and an undergravel filter are somewhat incompatible.

If there is ever any risk of ammonia in the water, a 50% water change is not excessive.

Off topic: do you shop at Animal Jungle? I used to live in your area.

Yes, I do shop at Animal Jungle and they are a great store with a mostly informed staff. They are not where I bought my newts though, I got them from some crappy pet store at southern shopping center if you know where that is but they were the only shop that had them at the time.

I never thought about the bioload of the blackworms. I'll make sure to keep an eye on that. I usually do a 25% waterchange about every 2 weeks(about 5 gallons). I only feed them the worms once a week and some earthworm pieces once a week (I feed 2 times a week).

My female fiddler moulted. She's a he.