I'd like to like to add, though it seems this problem seems to be solved, Ive been housing Notophthalmus viridescens with my jap. fire belly newts for some time now. None of which have seemed to hurt each other. I mean they are all still alive. in fact its the cutest thing really, the japanese fire belly newt do a kinda dog pile one the eastern spoted newts when they are just loafing around. not in courtship mind you, they just sleep there. when they were smaller they could get free rides and the eastern spoted newts didnt seem to mind.
Now maybe I am just one of the lucky ones that never had any problems, but its been almost a year. The fire belly newts have gotten a little too fat for piggyback rides but they still seem ok with living with each other.
this is a topic ive been wanting to ask the pro's. ive heard tales on both sides of the argument. I run a Very clean tank, with land, water and an abundance of plants on both. tadpoles swim at the bottom with a small group corys, gold fish, and paradise fish. while the newts share the ground with themselfs [3 eastern spotted newts and 4 japanese fire belly newts]. It got too big but there used to be a bull frog that grew from a tadpole. I am aware of things to consider, like that if i had kept this bull frog in there he would have eaten everything...but with the others Ive found no problems. I also have a dwarf frog that spends most of his time sleeping.
I did have a bigger fish that got to one of each of the newts before I realized it was the fishes doing, we soon departed..
any thoughts?