Hello everyone! :D

Hi my name's Conan, and I'm from Minneapolis. I always thought aquariums were cool, but never kept any of them on my own. Recently my girlfriend moved in, bringing her 5 year old alpine newt, Richie, along in its very bare bones 5 gallon setup, so I decided to look into how to care for it properly. I watched a gajillion youtube videos, read a lot, built a stand and a new tank, and found it all to be a very rewarding process. Then we decided to get another alpine newt (which I now realize was a little risky) and that's how I ran into Brad of Triton Newts, who lived nearby. Luckily Brad is a great breeder and he's the one who pointed me to the Caudata Culture website. It turned out to be an invaluable resource! (Thanks a lot Jenn!) Later on I decided I wanted to give breeding a shot so I bought one of Brad's alpine newt breeding pairs after he closed up shop, and that's been going much better than expected. I am definitely intrigued by the prospect of keeping fire salamanders and other kinds of newts but I have limited real estate for tanks . One of the side effects of keeping newts is keeping inverts. I have cultures for brineshrimp, angle worms, snails, blackworms, isopods and mealworms now. Anyway Here are some photos of my little guys.

Great lil story and welcome to the hobby our newtest friend! I'm impressed by the setup and plants for your first actual tank and seems like you have a growing future in this culture. I like the idea of the sponge for a lil docking station and we must credit your gf for a great first newt selection of and getting you intrigued to be part of these lovely creatures. Idk what it is about baby newts and salamanders with their gills when they still in larval stage but I'm obsessed with those lil floofy noogins. Are these all different newts or the same in their different metamorphosis stages?

They are all italian alpine newts (ichthyosaura alpestris apuana). When they are first hatched they look like tiny white spikes with no legs. As they grow they slowly get larger, grow out their legs, and get some black flecks on their bodies, but remain mostly transparent. When they start morphing they turn a much duller shade of brown, develop camoflauge patterns on their back, and lose their gills (although some of them keep their gills to adulthood).

The sponges are plastic pot scrubbers I bought on amazon. I use them in my diy box filters as biofiltration media, and in the larval tanks as a spot for the morphs to climb out of the water.

Super cool species do you know thier ages and I assume you plan on breeding them in the future?

Welcome, Conan. I live in MN as well. Our Alpine newts are probably cousins, in fact.