baby fire belly almost a year old are we on the right track?

Last March our female Fire belly newt Scurl laid 12 eggs. I went in to panic mode because she laid eggs a day before I was supposed to have surgery. I called two pet stores only to be told that fire bellys didn't lay eggs in captivity and that they could offer no help. I knew this wasn't the case because a few years prior the male newt Aristotle had fertalized eggs with a female newt my Fiance had owned previously. ( sadly she got out and dried up and none of the offspring survived)

out of the 12 eggs we only have 1 left. We named it Highlander because we suspect he devoured some of his brothers and sisters.

Currently he is living in a shallow 10 gallon tank with large pebbles. There are plants and a small " land area" He still has gills and he appears to be about 1 inch long. He is a strong swimmer and walks on the bottom of the tank. he's always looking around and seems very curious. The water is kept at room temperature. He's fed live brine shrimp because that's the only live food I can get for him where I live. Sometimes I try a little frozen daphina or drive tubiflex but he's not that interested.

I'm wondering if he's on the right track? he's pretty thin looking but I know he eats regularly. I've had a hard time finding information raising newts from eggs. I hope that our fire bellys will lay eggs again the spring and I hope to have a better success rate.

When it says a newt takes 2-3 years to mature does that mean sexually mature or does that mean look like the parents?

Some of my friends have asked about newt eggs. I'm wondering at what age is it safe to give them young newts. Can I give them eggs or should I wait till the offspring develop a little.

I want to become better educated about raising newts because I think these are amazing animals.

Start here:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/raising.shtml
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/microfoods.shtml

In order for juveniles to survive after they morph, they need to be as large as possible before metamorphosis. It's a lot easier to get them to eat well when they are still larvae. Have you tried frozen bloodworms? You might have to wiggle them at first to simulate live food.

After metamorphosis, there is a whole other set of problems.
http://groups.google.com/group/Urodela/web/raising-metamorphosed-juvenile-salamanders

Looking again at the title of your post... I wonder why this larva is a year old and hasn't morphed. That isn't normal. Perhaps it hasn't eaten enough. It usually takes about 3-4 months from hatching to metamorphosis. At that point, the newt looks like a miniature adult. Then it takes 1-3 years until sexually mature.