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Hello from Illinois

experience99

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Just wanted to introduce myself and my new tank, hoping to maybe get a few pointers from some of the more experienced newt/salamander keepers.

Names Patrick, living in Illinois (suburbs of Chicago). I've been keeping aquariums, purely fish, for upwards of a decade now. Currently I have a 125gal frontosa/clown loach tank. A 65gal African cichlid tank and a 30gal hospital tank with a couple tetras purely for aesthetic reasons. I had an extra 55gal that was just kinda sitting in my basement so my fiance and I decided to have some fun with it.

I set it up with leftover parts I've had from doing the aquarium thing for so long. Basement is a little cool, at least for the now in the winter, ~62F. So I have a heater in there. Currently it's filled ~2/3's with water, rocks are built up to give our soon to be new pets some land. I also plan on getting a nice chunk of driftwood to give them another option. Bought some plants to dress it up a little and give the newts more sense of security, most likely will invest in more once I figure this freshwater plant thing out, this will be my first adventure keeping plants. Any advice on that would be appreciated.

The tank has pretty large gravel in it, I contemplated taking it all out and leaving a bare bottom or replacing it with fine sand but with the size of this gravel i'm thinking it should be fine unless they get larger than I anticipate. It's not rough either so it shouldn't bother their bellies. Water is @69.5F and the air surrounding their terrestrial rocks is @66F.

I do have fairly powerful lights on, nothing too crazy but enough to help promote the plant growth. It has one 6,700K daylight lamp and one colormax lamp, both T5. I was planning on doing 12on/12off unless you guys feel something else would work better. One of the other things I was wondering about was my filter. Currently I have the marineland magnum 350 canister filter on. Flow rate is 350GPH, I adjusted the exhaust a little and removed the part that blows water into the tank so there isn't much water flow amongst the tank that would stress anyone out. However I did read somewhere while I was researching all this that it can be bad to overly filter the water. If so I do have an extra H.O.T. magnum canister filter with a flow rate of 250GPH, its much older so i'm sure it's not quite that high anymore.

Anyways the plan is to pick up 3 fire bellied newts later in the week. I'm looking forward to being a part of the forum, I don't post much, mainly just lurk and learn so thanks for any information in advance. Sorry if the picture is overly large, I'm using a Mac and I have no idea what i'm doing with it.

IMG_1893.jpg

sugarfive
 

Kaysie

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That's a nice tank for firebellies! The only thing I would change is to remove the heater. You don't need it. Salamanders like it cold.

Good luck with the plants too. I've never had a green thumb, so my hat's off to anyone who can grow anything (I kill elodea...).
 
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