Photo: Advise me on my tank set-up

Apologies for the photos, I'm a **** photographer!
I'm working on getting my tank set up with the plan of moving my CP larva into it once they get too big for the tub they are in now (so when they're close to metamorphosis). I think there is enough water in there for them, but also there is the driftwood for them to crawl out on and then the three ceramic pots will be the land area. One as you can see has plants, the other two will hold a hide and the feeding bowl.

The water is deeper than I'd like, but any shallower and the aquatic plants wouldn't be underwater any more. With this depth of water do you think I should be installing a filter? There is nothing alive in there now so I just have an oxygen shell in there to balance the pH. I was assuming that for this depth there wouldn't be much need to cycle the tank before they move in - but I should I be introducing a couple of snails or some water from the existing tub?

I'm also having trouble figuring out the land area. The three pots are mostly full of gravel to weigh them down. The 2 plants are in small pots and I have packed coconut fibre around them with large stones on top. I'm dubious about the coconut fibre though. I know people use it but its so loose and springy, how could the newts walk on it? Am I better to just have the gravel on its own - or with some moss maybe?

What else am I doing wrong (or doing right) here? Thanks for the benefit of your wisdom!

I should add that although it looks in the photos like there is direct sun on the tank, there isn't. It is opposite a window but doesn't get any direct sun.


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I would say: too much objects (your newts will be lost, especially after morphing). And too much water, when they are close to morphing.
I keep them, from close to metamorphosis till they are one year old, like this...

I would use sand insted of gravel for the bottom and get rid of the pots of rocks .

I wanted to use sand originally but I couldn't get any at the time...I don't have a car and its hard for me to get to the only shop in my area that has aquarium sand. I know gravel is harder to keep clean but Joost seems to manage so I'm hoping I can too!

Yes, I thought I probably had too much in there - thanks! I think its because I have 6 of them, I wanted to make sure that there would be lots of space for them. I guess I shouldn't have bought the aquatic plants - I don't often get a chance to go to the shop that has them so I went a bit crazy. And then I spent a lot more money buying the pots, so felt like i should use them! Thanks for the new photos, I have some other ideas now...

What is an oxygen shell?

In terms of behavior, I can tell you what the newts will do when they morph. They will climb up into the pink pot and then hide down under the rocks. They will not come out to eat. You sort of have to force them into proximity with their food.

One of these things Weco Wonder Shell Aquarium Water Conditioners seeing as I don't have any filtration in there I thought it couldn't hurt; my stepdaughter (ebonykrow on here) has one in her tank. I think they're commonly used in fish bowls?

Hmm. So you think I' be better to get rid of the rocks in the pot then? I have one of those fake log hides in the current tub with the larvae and I was going to put that in the big tank as the main hide. I put that pink pot in there mainly because i was trying to figure out how to keep the land plants from getting waterlogged and give them soil/food without contaminating the rest of the tank. I figured that when/if i water them the water can drain into the gravel underneath and I could just pull the pot out occasionally to drain it...i swear I've read every Caudata Culture article and relevant thread I can find, but I couldn't find much info on how to set up the land plants so that they don't die!

Well, I changed my tank around completely yesterday and it is much better. But then I thought of something else I could do to make it even betterer! So that will be the weekend project and I will post more photos next week. *sigh* apparently I can't picture a tank layout accurately in my head to see if it will work, I have to actually do it.Which is time consuming. But I shouldn't complain - in our humid,hot summer weather having my hands in a tank of water is really quite pleasant!

stitchpunk said:

I wanted to use sand originally but I couldn't get any at the time...I don't have a car and its hard for me to get to the only shop in my area that has aquarium sand. I know gravel is harder to keep clean but Joost seems to manage so I'm hoping I can too!

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Why is sand easier to clean than gravel? I've used gravel for more than 16 years, and I think it's easier to clean gravel than sand

Joost said:

Why is sand easier to clean than gravel? I've used gravel for more than 16 years, and I think it's easier to clean gravel than sand

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With sand, the dirt and uneaten food sit on top of the sand. With gravel, the uneaten food falls down among the pieces of gravel. I find sand a bit easier, but it clearly depends on personal preference and cleaning methods.

hah, well i guess the saying "you can't miss what you never had" applies to me as this is my first tank. By the time I'm done with it the gravel will only be very shallow anyway so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to clean.

if you have a good bacterial balance in the tank, which normally are settled in the gravel, it isn't a problem. I almost never clean the gravel in my tanks. The shrimp, snails, Asellus take care of the dirt before the bacteria. And I use a lot of plants

There´s always another option: keeping them fully terrestrial for the first few months.
I kept mine on kitchen paper towels, with a very shallow water bowl and several hides. It makes hand-feeding way way easier, and allows you to monitor them individually without strugling to find them.
The easinnes in feeding and monitoring ensures that no juvenile is left behind and that they all eat properly. They´ll grow FAST, and when they reach 7cm or so you can try to make them aquatic (mine went from terrestrial to fully aquatic in seconds). also, this method, although dreadfully unaesthetic, it´s the most practical in my opinion (cleaning couldn´t possibly be any easier).

Ah, the old terrestrial vs semi-aquatic debate! Which is what makes it so hard to know how to set up the tank...fortunately for me EbonyKrow's newts will morph first and I'll be able to see how hydrophobic (or not) they are (hers and mine are from the same breeder.)

Someone made an interesting post on here (can't remember who) speculating on whether the level of hydrophobia in FBN juveniles varies between regions and different populations, which sounds quite likely to me. The breeder of these ones raises all her juveniles in semi-aquatic set-ups, so I'm going for that set-up initially on the theory that this will be the preference of this particular population. But I'll have plenty of land and the water will be very shallow....if necessary it should be easy enough to remove the water entirely, but I'd prefer to keep it and then increase the depth gradually as the newts reach adulthood. Only time will tell!

I thought I'd have new photos to post today, but, well....we bought a big plasma tv in the weekend and I got distracted with the awesomeness of it (David Attenborough's Life in Cold Blood looked AMAZING!)...i digress...rest assured that the new tank setup will be a big improvement (i think),and thanks for all the advice thus far! Photos as soon as I can - I value your thoughts!

Oh my goodness there's so much choice on this forum.

I love Joust's set-up, it looks really nice - but then when I read Azhael's that sounds good too, cos it's so easy.

Could I ask Azhael - does the kitchen paper need to be damp?

Yep, just moist, not wet.

Azhael said:

Yep, just moist, not wet.

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What did you feed yours on please, & what kind of hides did you use ??

I moved my larvae into the new tank over the weekend, and not before time i think - one or two of them were looking a little raggedy around the tail from being nibbled on (I assume) They seem to be enjoying stomping around on the gravel rather than a plastic tub!

So here are my bad photos. This set-up is possibly still a bit complex, but I'm trying to make it so that when they morph they can come straight out onto land and I won't have to change anything much (though I may lower the water level a bit further, its at about 4cm now.)

Comments/thoughts about what is good/bad here? Also I took a little video of one of them checking out his new home, its on my blog Evening hunt - This is the inside of stitchpunk's head

I'm just bumping this up to report that my newts seem happy in their new tank. I have had 2 metamorphose in the past week and the others won't be too far behind, so I'm starting to lower the water level and have added another big flat rock which is currently just under the water. The larvae that are nearing metamorphosis seem to like this as it makes it easy for them to sit just under the surface to breathe. I wish I had some photos, but honestly some days I can't even find my morphs!

My only concern just now is food, because they hide so much that I can't really tell if they're eating anything yet. I'm still waiting on my fruit flies to arrive (i've stolen a few off of EbonyKrow for now) and i think our whiteworm culture has died. I'm trying putting a few mosquito larvae in a bowl with about 2mm of water but I don't know if that will appeal or not.

I might add that my 1st morph was determined to torture me! S/he came out of the water for a few hours and then went back in and spent about 18 hours just swimming around and resting in really strange "hey, look at me! I'm dead!" poses. Seems to be fully land-based now though, and as far as I can tell the 2nd one has had a similar behavioural pattern. Fortunately they seem to be coping with the really warm and humid weather we've had the past few days. Fingers crossed for their survival!

Jennewt said:

With sand, the dirt and uneaten food sit on top of the sand. With gravel, the uneaten food falls down among the pieces of gravel. I find sand a bit easier, but it clearly depends on personal preference and cleaning methods.

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I agree. Fine sand is my preference. IIRC, Zoo-Med used to produce a product called Soft Sand that was a very fine, soft sand which as aimed for keepers of soft-shell turtles, but they discontinued it several years ago. I still have it in my T. granulosa, C.e. popei and T. marmotatus enclosures. It was the best! After it was discontinued, I bought a bag of Repti-Sand for use in my T. kweichowensis tank, but washing out all the fine suspended particles was a real chore, and even still today the water tends to get a bit cloudy when the sand gets disturbed.


And while that is a beauty of a tank, I agree that it's a bit too complex for morphs. I use wet paper towel as substrate, and a few small hiding places in a 5-gallon enclosure to house my morphs. It may be drab, but feeding is easy and clean-up takes minutes.