alpines and air gulping

Hi there, I've got my 3 juvenile alpine newts in a 20g tank with about 6" of water. There is java moss and a substrate of mixed sand and small rocks, up to half an inch thick, with places of bare bottom. They do have places to come to the surface or near the surface to hang out, such as the tops of clay flower pots, a log, and plastic plants. There is an airstone too. No filter yet. My tank readings are currently: temp 63.5 F, ph 7.2, ammonia 1 ppm, nitrite .25, nitrate 0. I just did a partial water change, though, and those readings were taken before I did it.

My newts seem to prefer to spend most of their time on the bottom, nosing through the substrate. They swim up to the surface and gulp for air quite often, as in several times an hour. I could not find if the gulping is normal behavior, or normal within certain parameters. Nothing I've read talks about newts' air gulping, just axolotls.

I'm a new newt owner so I guess I'm a little nervous whether or not this is okay. I've only had them for a day. Thanks for any help.

brucedickinson said:

My newts seem to prefer to spend most of their time on the bottom, nosing through the substrate. They swim up to the surface and gulp for air quite often, as in several times an hour. I could not find if the gulping is normal behavior, or normal within certain parameters. Nothing I've read talks about newts' air gulping, just axolotls.
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Hi Bruce,
That's interesting, one of my new Alpine's did the exact same thing for the first day. It's been a couple of days now and I haven't noticed him doing it any more. The other two spent the first day out of the water but are now spending much more time nosing around the bottom. I haven't seen either one of them doing it. Maybe someone can tell us what it is.

Alicia

If you mean they are swimming up for a breath of air...that is normal. If they are getting stuck once they do that and bobbing around like corks...that could be a problem.

That being said, I've noticed when newts are actively foraging they go up for air pretty often, once every 3-5 minutes.

Newts gulping air is perfectly normal. They don't have gills, so they get most of their oxygen from the atmosphere.

yes of course - they have lungs!

Haha, I feel silly now. They're not floating, so I guess that means they are behaving normally. Thanks for answering my question!

Sounds good. Just a note that if they are floating they might want to get onto land and should have easy means to do so. It sounds like you've got that covered though.