Paddle-Tail Newt - New Owner Question

Hi, I am new to the forum as I just became an owner to a medium sized most likely paddle tail newt (they were sold as such but for once the pet store may have been right)

Firstly, I am sure the poor little thing is stressed as they petstore had about 20 of them in a 10 gal tank, under a hot lamp, with most of them crawling out of water at this point probably from lack of air. The one I took home I figured was doing better then others since it was still hiding and swimming. For this post I will refer to the little guy as 'it' as I am not sure if it's male or female yet.

I made it's home in a 20 gal long tank, the tank is new, but the filter and the gravel came from cycled tanks. (I basically moved the guppies I had in various small tanks into the big tank), anyways.

I've been trying to keep the tank cool with ice packs, my house won't get colder than 75 but I got the tank to be between 68-75.

I have some questions though for someone who has experience with this type of newt.
1) When I did some research prior to buying it, most sources stated it was fully aquatic, so my tank is 3/4th full with a small platform it can crawl onto. However most pictures of the setups I see have very low water levels and paddletails out of the water.
Mine does not seem to want to come out, I thought maybe the platform was too high for it, and moved the critter out onto it, to which it promptly swam off and hid.
I am however concerned if my water level is too high, how good do those guys swim, and how much should it come out of the water if at all?

2) I understand they like colder temperatures, and in the winter and fall it will be fine in the area I am in, but for now I have to keep cooling it, I am wondering if it's actually doing more harm as the temperature keeps fluctuating as the tank warms up, and would it be better to leave the water 75-80 as it stays on it's own, but keep it constant.

3)My amonnia spiked at .05ppm yesterday after I first set up the tank, I imagine some of the gravel that was cultured had some anaerobic packets, I left it alone rather than change the water as I had no more buckets pre-cooled, and it has gone down overnight and I imagine will be fine by tonight as the filter is doing it's job.
How sensitive is this animal to ammonia levels? When I saw there was any in the water, I was expecting it to crawl out, but it seemed to keep on the bottom. Could it have been too weak to swim up?

4)I fed it some frozen blood worms that got at least sampled (live brown worms were ignored), it also seems to ignore the guppies and the guppy fry - I was expecting it to chase and make a snack of the babies (which was why they guppies were housed with it), which also makes me worry that it is not doing well.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I had plenty of experience with aquatic turtles, and have a thriving 10 gal with some ADFs who are happy and fat, but I feel like this little guy is so different it's like I never had a tank before.
Thanks a billion!

S.

Hi and welcome :happy:

I to had 2 paddletail newts (Dragon & Diego there is an album in my profile see if the piccies are the same as yours) that were sold to me as Giant Rock Newts and when they arrived in the post they were indeed paddletails!

Anyway I had mine set up in a 54ltr tank with the water about halfway which was 20cm's I also had a large hollow log for them to hide in and a big rock that they could also hide behind but also poked out of the water making a platform!

Paddletails are mostly aquatic and mine came out on occassion to have a nosey around and climb the glass (make sure you have a top on as they will escape) but they mostly enjoyed sitting on the filter, log or hiding or swimming Also make sure you have a hiding space per paddletail as they can be aggressive especially around feeding times.

Have a read of this as this is where I found out which species mine was (stupid seller not sure why he lied)! Caudata Culture Species Entry - Pachytriton - Paddletail

Also I would say your tank is perfect with water level and platform but again depending on how many you have makde sure you have hiding places for them!

MIne ate bloodworm& tubifex.

Anyway good luck & hope they are very happy :happy:

P.s. Also not sure why the shop had lamps on them as if they are paddletails that is not required and pretty sure would harm them as they dont like the heat they are not reptiles!

Thanks for the reply!
I am 99% sure I have Pachytriton labiatus, I just have one - I did not want to deal with aggression since they were so crowded in the store already and attacking eachother, plus everywhere I read they seem to tolerate company but not really need it. (I mean as oppose to my frogs that love playing together)
Did your newts play together or just sort of hung out away from each other?

I am pretty sure it's a girl...

She still has not come out on the little platform, but tried climbing on some plants, so I put an acrylic ramp on the other side of the tank which she tried to climb THROUGH it, LOL.
Hopefully she will figure it out eventually.

I am a little worried about her not eating, I got her to take a bite from some frozen worms again, but after that she ignored them, she still ignores the numerous guppy fry too.
How much are they suppose to eat?

I keep seeing her nosing around the gravel - my frogs do that when they are looking for food, so I am worried she is not eating enough.

If anything the guppies seem to be chasing her around the tank, cause they are curious like a cat.
(Yes, I know every guide says no to regular gravel, but they say the same about using it with frogs and with turtles and I never had a problem, in fact the frogs will spit it out right away if it gets in their mouth so I am not too worried)

I still want someone to answer about the temperature though :-(
I've been putting ice and ice packs into the water once a day, but I am curious if such fluctuation in temperature is actually better than keeping it warmer but constant...?

I am also yet to see her swim - so here is the really stupid question, CAN those guys swim or can they only crawl up on stuff? their little paws don't seem to be webbed or anything one would think of conductive for swimming...

No worries glad to try and help

Sadly I did not have my paddletails long and still to this day dont know what happened MIne didn't each much either despite trying lots of things!

Cant say my newts particulary played together at all they always stayed at opposite ends to each other but they never faught which was good
They didn;t swim much either just every now and again and to get gulps of air from the surface.

As for temperature and eating here is another post from Caudata http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...amander-help/64324-paddle-tail-newt-help.html here is another link on paddletails aswell that should answer your questions

paddletailnewt

Hope this all helps and if you have any more questions just shout sure there are some more experienced people than me on this species

Good luck!

These are stream dwellers, which means they live in waters that are very rich in oxygen, and very cold. Ideally, temps should always be below 20ºC.
Do you have a basement? That would be the easiest solution. Alternatively there are a number of things you can try to lower the temps:
Caudata Culture Articles - Cooling


They don´t need land. They will only use the land if they are ill, horribly stressed (mainly by inadequate temps) or being bullied by another.
Don´t be afraid of having the 20gallon full of water. The more water you have, the more stable temps will be and the easier it wil be to maintain water quality.

You really should not use gravel. It posses a threat of impaction plus it traps huge amounts of debris. They can tolerate low levels of ammonia and nitrites, but make sure they don´t reach high concentrations by doing 20% daily water changes (with decholrinated, cool water).

It will hunt the guppies, but give it time, the poor thing is terribly stressed and is not yet familiar with captivity...after all it just suffered a horrible importation from its native habitat. Try earthworms, they are the very best. Fish should only make a small portion of a varied diet anyway. If you can get your hands on some gammarids, that would be brilliant (they are an important food source for most stream-dwelling species).

Also, these guys need a strong current, so make sure you have a powerful filter or powerhead to create the desired current.

They can swim but they are basically bottom dwellers, don´t expect it to swim around like a fish, it won´t happen.

I would like to say something, but don´t want you to take offence...in the future, you really should inform yourself to the point of exhaustion (literally, as best you can) before you get a new species...it really is not fair on the animal, specially one that has been torn from its natural habitat to serve as a pet. One must always be prepared to offer PERFECT conditions from the very beginning (and again, this is of particular importance for an animal that is terribly stressed and can often develop infections, or starve). I´m just saying this so that you do prepare yourself in the future, it really is the very least we can do.