Cynops Orientalis Assistance?

I have bought two chinese firebelly newts from a pet store about a month ago and here are my problems and questions....

-Their body mass seems under what their fellow counterparts (the pictures and videos I've seen of other fire bellies at least). Is there any foods I should provide them to start repairing the potential damage the pet store have done to their fragile bodies?

-Can someone provide me details of an ideal tank set up for these little guys? I'm thinking of purchasing an internal filter for them.. would this disturb them in any way?

-What are the general activity level of these little guys? Mine don't seem to be that active... they only hang out on their plastic plant halfway in the water and halfway out.

-Truthfully I haven't ever seen these guys eat... What should I provide them that will make them want to eat? I've provided them Tubifex worms, newt pellets, and live pin head crickets.. all to no avail...

- How deep should the water be? How much land should they have?

Well.. I do believe these are all the questions I want to ask... Sorry for having so many! I just absolutely want my fire bellies to get better and more healthier!

As i´m sure you know it´s not just the pet-shop that gave them a hard time, it´s being captured and imported too.
If your newts are underweight then they are some of the unlucky ones who have spent some time in the pet-shop.


Foods: earthworms(best food you can provide), slugs, bloodworms(both live and frozen are fine, but freeze-dried are rubbish), blackworms, waxworms, small freshwater fish(quarantined for possible illnesses and fed by tweezers), etc....

They are normally quite inactive. When healthy and used to captivity they usually become over-excited at feeding time, but the rest of the time they usually don´t do much.

The tank should be a minimum of 38l for a pair. I recomend not using a filter as they are still water newts, but if the current is small it may work fine. You can easily substitute the filter with live plants(they love plants) and adecuate cleaning.
Use as much volume of water as possible. These newts when healthy and properly housed are almost a 100% aquatic so terrestrial areas are a waste fo space, plus the more water you have, the better.
For land you can just provide a piece of floating cork bark.

If they spend time with their heads out of the water, you may have a problem with temperature or water quality. The tank must be cycled and they should ideally be kept under 22ºC.

Wonderful! Thank you so much for the advice, today I am going shopping so I'm going to gather all the odds n ends and try to see if I can get them into a happier and healthier home! Thanks again!

The care sheet on Caudata Culture may help you out also!

Oh yes.. I just got to thinking... What kind of plants would you recommend I get?


@Sludge- Yes thank you, I've been studying that sheet back and forth!

Hi there and welcome. My pair really did not eat for at least a month after I got them - also victims of a pet store and I was a very uneducated consumer back then. Anyway, they were also terrestrial then and I'd try to put them in a small bowl and feed them frozen and thawed bloodworms in it as I was told. I remember the day the skinny one (male) finally ate - I jumped for joy. My pair went on to reproduce so I suppose they recovered from whatever horrors their lives had during transportation and waiting on a home. I've since separated them, but since finding this board, I've switched their foods to include live blackworms, white worms, and still the occasional bloodworms.

I have had a very low-current filter for the adult pair that I run very sparingly. I don't use a filter for the larvae tanks as it would be dangerous and I haven't decided if I will use one once they reach adulthood - hoping they do, anyway. This juvenile stage is stressful - I'm praying they eat! I have about a dozen morphs and plenty of larvae. Since I've recently gotten some live plants (thanks to SludgeMunkey and Lepeuerii) I'm leaning towards no filters for them in the future.

I use turtle docks for the larvae tanks and have artificial plants that come out of the water in case the adults want to leave the water, but they haven't been caught on land since they returned to the water about 6 mos. after I got them.

Good luck - be sure temps are cool enough and water quality is maintained. I'm raising the water levels in all of my tanks to make that easier and going to get some cork bark for my adults should they care to venture out of the water.

Dana