Re-Introduction I guess? Oregon Biotope

Its been a good 5 years I'd say since I last kept any amphibians and I'm finally set up to do it again

I'm doing a completely native semi-aquatics aquarium/vivarium Oregon biotope. Actually, its so specific that everything I collected came from the creek that runs by my house.

Only planning on keeping a pair of Roughskinned Newts (T.grans) but the male is very aquatic and the female is very terrestrial which the environment they are in suites them quite well.

Anyways, I will likely be a bit more active again on here and will post my experiences along the way.

Cheers!
Stu

Re-Welcome! Looks lovely!

Beautiful tank and i like the idea of a native replica, but i have to say the reason why your newts are not fully aquatic is likely related to the fish. Keeping them with fish, particularly "large" fish, in such a confined space is not going to work well for them and could potentially cause more trouble than just a couple of newts that are afraid of going in the water. The crayfish is also a problem.

By the way, i had never seen that species of Adiantum before, but it´s lovely.

otterwoman said:

Re-Welcome! Looks lovely!

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Azhael said:

Beautiful tank and i like the idea of a native replica, but i have to say the reason why your newts are not fully aquatic is likely related to the fish. Keeping them with fish, particularly "large" fish, in such a confined space is not going to work well for them and could potentially cause more trouble than just a couple of newts that are afraid of going in the water. The crayfish is also a problem.

By the way, i had never seen that species of Adiantum before, but it´s lovely.

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All the female T.Grans I've kept have been very terrestrial and almost always found them in higher ground just like these ones. The males I find closer to water and have a much broader tail than the females. The pictures dont show it well but all the fish in the tank are about 2 bites for the newts, even the crayfish, and the male swims around quite a bit.

They were all all taken from about a 50 foot length of stream all found in the same couple pools. The plants and moss also. The Adiantum is Adiantum aleuticum, its lovely isnt it! It was growing off a sheer rock face covered in moss that was about a 12" above the creeks water level.

T.granulosus behaves almost fully aquatic in captivity for most people. Both males and females make use of the water if conditions are ideal. It´s not that it is bad at all for them to be terrestrial, obviously, but in this case one has to question why they would not behave aquatically as they usually do in captivity.
Don´t subestimate the crayfish. Procambarus clarkii is known to cause severe damage to newts as large as fully grown female Pleurodeles waltl, just an example.
Most newts actively seek water bodies that are free of fish as these are the best breeding places (plus some fish are predators of the adults too). They can detect the pressence of fish chemically and this can cause some animals to abandon the water. There´s a lot of variation in this respect but it´s usually best to keep them without fish. The choice is yours, i´m just pointing it out so that you can keep an eye on their behaviour.
The fact that they share the same habitat in the wild says very little about wether they will do well together in a confined space.

Thanx for the ID on the Adiantum, it is indeed very beautiful. If you happen to have any pictures of that rock face, i´d apreciate them!

I appreciate the help I think they are likely adjusting to being confined around water constantly as I only collected them about a week ago.

I will definitely go snap a shot of that rock face for you Its only a couple miles down the stream from my house and I can always use an excuse to go on a hike

The crayfish will probably go back just to be on the safe side as they start to grow. The smallest of them is about .5" and the largest is about 2", ideally I'd like to find a couple native shrimp species out here to keep in there for cleanup.

Strangely enough, the aquatic snails I collected with everything do an amazing job of eating up the leftover blood worms, so I may just stick to those and exnay the crayfish altogether.

Even in my last terrarium setup I had a lot of water for them to use and I kept 3 that all preferred to stay terrestrial unless in breeding. Heres some pics from my old group.

Most of the places I've collected them I find them near water, but rarely in water most of the year. My parents have a small man made pond that is on a hilltop at about 600 ft elevation and it is the only standing body of water for quite a ways. I find them in there readily, but when looking into the edge of the forest surrounding the area I find them even more plentiful under damp tree stumps, mosses, and bark.

That's a great looking tank. How did you construct the land areas?

JoshBA said:

That's a great looking tank. How did you construct the land areas?

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The land areas in the wall mount I used black pond spray foam and pressed rock salt into it while it was expanding to texture it and give it random patterning. Once the foam solidified I used warm water to melt it off and it leaves just the indentations of where the rock salt was. I only did that on either end of the tank and just a enough to give an area to attach things to.

The rest of of the land masses I simulated off of the creek bed itself. Made from sticks that had been laying across running water with mosses growing over them, or downed logs with Epiphytic Fern species growing on them.