Fish in with Newts...??!!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question or two! I am looking to re-do my tanks. So far I have two, one with 2 Chinese Fire Bellied Newts, and the other larger one with 8 Italian Alpine Newts. I simply don't like the look of them. I've been looking through the forums at pictures of other peoples tanks to see if I could get my creative juices flowing, and I noticed that a lot of people have 'other stuff' in there like fish and shrimps and snails etc... Is this ok? If so any ideas what type of fish I could put in my tanks?

Thank you

V'.

Shrimps and snails are fairly safe. Large snails can cause injury, rarely. Some fish are OK, but research carefully. See
Caudata Culture Articles - Fish with Caudates

Thank you - I've had a good read, it's one of those topics where some will agree and other won't....! I will think about it more before I take any action!

Also, one other question to you or anybody...??!!
My Newts never seem to be very active, usually hiding a lot of the time. They hardly come out of the water, so I'm fairly sure that that is ok. This is one of the reasons for changing my tanks around. Any ideas or advice on what I could do to make them happier would be greatly received.

Many Thanks.

LOTS of plants. Really, a large quantity of them xD
They love hanging around and hiding in dense areas of vegetation (plus you get the benefits of the plants).

aaaah yeah i agree with Azhael.... I was having a similar problem until I got some plants in for my boys xxxxxxxxxxxx

I also recently redid my tank. It was pretty plain- sand substrate, artificial plants, a few rocks for hiding spots and a bland turtle dock. I now substituted a few of the artificial plants for elodea and added 6 white cloud minnows that are way to fast for my newt to catch and a mystery snail to help with the clean up a bit. Also what turned out to be a great idea was adding some moist sphagnum moss on the turtle dock and over hanging the edge so my newt can climb on it from all edges and still stay moist while not in the water, it also offers some additional hiding spots for the fish. Must say I wish I'd done all this sooner. FYI my newt seems much more active as well.

My newts didn't like red cherry shrimp; the shrimp would jump the newt would jump twice as high...

Thank you to everyone for replying...
Srfr72 - I was thinking about some Minnows, I'll see how the re-vamp comes along and then maybe look into it. I already have a sand substrate (which I love) and some big slate rocks that provide good hiding places, however it's a b*gger to clean! So I'm looking to do something that looks attractive but is fairly easy to clean.

Yesterday I spent just over £20 on plants which I will be adding, so hopefully this will make the Newts feel happier and in turn encourage them to be a bit more active.

Also, are there any snails that I should avoid, or a snail that anyone would recomend? All helps to keep the tank clean. :happy:

Thanks all so much for helping me out.
V'.

Avoid apple snails; they can get to over 6 inches in diameter (apparenly) and produce a lot of waste.

I just added live plants to my tank too and my newts seem to approve.

Nerite snails are apparently good for algae consumption but all algae eaters won't eat all types of algae.

Nerite and apple snails are more tropidal (if you can get them from a cold water tank then that will be better as they'll be adjusted) but for the temperatures of a newt tank a ramshorn or the general pest snails that come on plants would be the best option if you want a snail (snails will reproduce like mad).

i would avoid snails, they always seem to pump out more poop than any amount of food that they eat and some will eaven refuse to eat the debris and will instead munch on your plants or a little bit of old newt food.

as well they will reproduce whenever they get a chance and can be painful to remove from a tank once they get settled in.

if you are looking for cleaners i would highly suggest ghost shrimp, they clean your tank like it was their sole purpous in life, they make a good snack when your newt catches one, and they are very adorable and may even breed in the tank (more food and maybe if they survive more shrimps, rare for any to live tho), my ghosties seemed perfectely fine with my newts chilly waters and they were always keen on escaping from the newt wherever he went.

also many shrimp are cheap and easy to find and won't harm your newts, win win situation all around.

I've read that ghost shrimp don't eat too much algae, so cherry shrimp might be the better bet. I've got some pond snails and limpets that rode in with my plants. They do a remarkable job of keeping the glass clean. I'm pretty sure that my axolotls pick the snails off the glass once they reach a certain size, because they all seem small. Obviously, they live long enough to reproduce, because I keep finding them, but they get munched up soon after that.