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No substrate

Gregh

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Will having no form of substrate whatsoever harm my newt for one night? I saw him eat a rock and took the whole substrate out, and i'm on the hunt for sand tomorrow.
 

Otterwoman

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Well, if it's terrestrial you don't want it to be too dry; maybe a wet piece of paper towel. If it's aquatic, many people don't use substrates at all.
 

Gregh

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It's aquatic and that's a relief! Now as long as he spat out that rock we're in business. I'm liekly still goign to get some sand tomorrow though... is sand safe with an aquatic newt or wil it ingest the sand too? If not and I want a substrate for bacteria, do i have any better options? I'd like to avoid chunky pebbles if possible.
 

Gregh

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Pachytriton isn't defined in wikipedia.... some genius on this site ought to do a piece on it! Everybody loves wikipedia!
 

Kaysie

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Wikipedia is the bane of my existence. I wish it would crash and burn.

It will ingest sand, but the sand particles are smaller, and easily expelled.
 

Gregh

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Really? I find wikipedia more useful than most EDU sites if it's used carefully, but i guess people are usually on one side or the other with wikipedia haha.
 

Gregh

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Well i just drove down to a nice place called "kell industries" to get a bucket of sand and a bunch of cherry picked smooth stones for 50 cents :) I'm gonna wash it all out now.

So should I use hot water or should I use boiling? Probably boiling?
 

John

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There's sand and there's sand. Many sands have ingredients that are either bad for water quality or dangerous for newts. You should be very careful about what sand you use (children's play sand is good, and pool filter sand).
 

Gregh

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This is similar to beach sand, and I strained it under hot water until the water above it was clean.

good or bad?
 

Kaysie

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What John's saying is that it could contain things like cement, lime, any number of contaminants.
 

Gregh

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hmm ok...

I also got rocks there but I'm thinking they'll be ok, they're all just solid rock and I cleaned them/boiled them for 25ish minutes each
 
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