Firebellies wont do anything!

hi everybody, i have a few questions, and i need advice, i have 2 firebelly newts, ive had them for about 3-4 days now, and they wont eat, go in the water, or move much. so can someone tell me if im doing something wrong? my aquarium is about a 5-6 gallon tank, maybe a bit more, and i put blue, green and purple rocks, i gave them a little feeding dish thats on the land part of the aquarium, but so far they haven't eaten from it. i feed them frozen brine shrimp which i let thaw out first, should i put it in the water? because when i do, it just sinks to the bottom, laying on the rocks and i doubt the newts will get to it. and the water in the tank is a bit on the colder side than warm, its not freezing, its just a bit cold, should i change the temperature? buy a water heater? any help would be appreciated. thanks everybody!

Mmm....there are several things that sound improbable there...
First off, the minimum volume i would recomend for a pair of Cynops orientalis is a 38l tnak(aprox a 10gallon). These newts are fully aquatic when healthy and properly housed. It´s normal for them to be terrestrial now though, since they´ve just gone through a horrible time, being caught, imported from China, and then surviving the pet-shops(which generally house them in bad conditions). The stress of the whole process makes a lot of them go terrestrial temporarily. Provide them with a suitable aquatic area (again...i recomend a fully aquaitc 38gallon tank with a piece of cork bark as terrestrial area)and they´ll eventually go aquatic.
They won´t use the water now because it´s impossible the water quality is good...you need a much bigger volume of water to ensure it´s apropriate for them. Also, no heaters!!!! Newts like it cold...ideally under 20ºC.
When terrestrial, they most likely won´t accept any food that´s not alive. Feed them earthworms, which are very nutritious, gut-loaded crickets, slugs, waxworms....

Make sure you read this link:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Cynops/C_orientalis.shtml

You should also check the content on the Articles, as they have valuable information you´ll need to take good care of your newts. You can also learn a lot by reading many of the posts on the Advanced section of this forum, dedicated to Cynops.

If after reading until your eyes bleed you still have questions, we´ll be glad to help!
Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Hello, welcome!

Firstly, you should read this caresheet : http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Cynops/C_orientalis.shtml

They won't eat until they will go to water. Surely, they are stressed, it happens at first with new animals. Maybe you should try feeding them with tweezers or wait to let them go to water by themselves.

Don't put a heater, they are better at cool temps.

Please, read the caresheet.


wow, azhael, faster than me X)

alright, ill try and go out and get a bigger aquarium, um, how much water should i fill it with? half way? full? quarter?

I recomend almost full. Just leave 4-5cm to the rim. The reason for this, is that the bigger the volume of water, the easier it is to maintain water quality and the more stable it is temperature and parametre wise. Also, they will be fully aquaitc once they get used to their new home and you get the hang of caring for them, so more water means more space for them to swim around.

Oziris, that way the message is doubly clear xD

okay thankyou, but i have 1 more question, what about the land part?

Well..i had already told you about that...you only need something like a piece of cork bark floating in the surface. Or a turtle deck or something of the sort. There´s no use in wasting water volume in creating a land area as it most probably won´t be used.

ahh okay, thanks!

Good luck with your newts and welcome to the forum. Along with all of the other very useful information provided already, you'll want to make sure to perform frequent water changes with treated tap water(tap water with dechlorinator) while the tank gets cycled to lessen the build-up of toxic ammonia and nitrite. This link http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cyclingEDK.shtml should answer a lot of your questions about this vital process.