FB newt newby...

ok so it's been a several months since I rescued this FB newt, and I'm not seeing any change to aquatic... he will walk around on some moss but doesn't touch the water. i'm a very patient person but i'm concerned where it has been close to 9 months that i've had him and i've yet to see him swim voluntarily.

background is that this fellow was kept in a 1/2 gallon plastic container (i refuse to call it a tank) before i got it. I moved him to a 10 gallon setup shortly after i got him, but he refused to touch the water.

I wanted to do something a bit more specific in teh lines of a planted tank and the old setup could only have 1 fluorescent tube, and i got a great deal on a 12x12x12 exo terra tank, which has the doors on the front.

here are pics of his setup.
the plants are "lucky bamboo" (dracenea?) java moss, and what i believe are frogbit (looks like duckweed, but grows leaves the size of quarters.

in the pictures the water level is low, but normally it is right up slightly above the bottom edge of the trim . his "cave" is a broken clay pot, with some sphagnum moss that may be dead with java moss growing up into it.

The filtration is a cycled Elite Mini, with the outbut buffered behind some java moss and some lucky bamboo. only other tank mates are Malaysian trumpet snails which came in on the java.

the generic exoterra foam background, and there is a resin "waterfall" with java moss on certain levels to reduce flow force and noise. setup is almost silent.

He rarely leaves his cave other than to climb on top of it.

food at this point has been red wrigglers and dried bloodworms (won't touch frozen whether in the water or in a small glass dish near his cave.

I realize there isn't a huge amount of water in there, but I wanted this setup to give him easy access to the water and easy exit, trying to encourage him to try it out.

he will stand in water that is 1-2 mm deep, but that's all, and that is only if I overfill the tank after water changes.

I do have a different 10 gallon that I may end up using for him, but it seems like a waste of space when he stays on the small platform i made for him.


Suggestions?

A small volume of water is going to give you problems.
In order to entice this one to go aquatic you need to provide a lot of water. A minimum of 40l is recommended for stability.
I bet a fully cycled tank with 40l of water or more, heavily planted, will result in success (eventually ).

ok... I thought the Exo Terra tank was a better option since he wasn't going in the water much, but I guess it is a bit small.

I guess I'll have to work on a new setup... I might even have a 60 L around here that I can use to give him a bit more space.

Hmm now whatever will I do with this Exo Terra tank... I guess I'll just have to find something to put in it.

BtG

Hmm just had a thought... he's always been in a tank with white coloured substrate... even in his previous 10 gallon(40 L) setup... could this be affecting it too? It was gravel i had left over from another tank, but until now I didn't even consider that the white might also be a factor in his/her unwillingness to swim...

I don´t think so, in fact i very much doubt so. The fact that it ws gravel could be a factor but not for the color, for the possible water quality issues since it traps sooo much debris.

A 60l tank would be ideal. It can hold enough water to guarantee stability and it would make it almost impossible for parametres to go wrong, with just minimal care.