fire bellied newt question

[angelad]

hi i'm new to this forum and i have a question about my newt. it is a chinese fire bellied and i've had it for around 15 years which is a very long time in newt years i hear. it is housed in a 15 gallon tank by itself and i was wondering if anyone knows if it would be okay to put any other newts in the tank with it or if that would be harmful and disruptive to him. he once had another newt with him about 10 years ago, but it only lived for three years. at that time he was not aggressive with the other newt. any thoughts?

 

[Abrahm]

Your newt is certainly got a few years under his belt! Chinese fire belly newts in the pet trade are collected from the wild and can be taken at nearly any age so some last longer than others.

If you wanted to house other Chinese fire belly newts with your current animal you certainly could. I would very strongly recommend quarantining any animals you purchase for at least 30 days. I would also make sure that you obtain the appropriate animal as a cage mate. Often times fire bellies and similar newts are misidentified in pet stores, see this article for some common mistakes.

Quarantine is going to be extremely important. Most animals in pet stores have just recently been collected and shipped across the ocean. A great majority of them are ill and some don't stand any chance at all of surviving. You wouldn't want to get your current animal sick so please keep new arrivals in a separate container and do no use anything from one tank in the other! If cost is an issue, plastic tubs and bins make excellent quarantine facilities.

 

[tomthlee]

Wow, that's a long time to have a newt! It's comforting to hear this because I just bought a Chinese fire-bellied newt and I hope she has a long lifespan.

What do you feed your newt? And how is your tank set up? I'd like to know the little things you do to keep yoru newt healthy.

BTW I agree with Abrahm about quarantining new animals.

 

[angelad]

well, he's been eating frozen brine shrimp for the majority of his life. his tank is set up with a mixture of plastic and silk plants. he has a water depth of about 7 or 8 inches and the bottom of his tank is lined with smooth stones which are about dime-sized. he's got a large area of land to hang out on in which he frequently does. he gets a good chunk of the shrimp about once a week and we clean his cage out entirely about once every 6 or 7 weeks. also, we keep him in our basement, so he's always in a cool environment which gets sunlight, but not direct sunlight.

thanks for the advice. i have one other question. does anyone know what species of fish or other amphibian would be compatible with him?

 

[angelad]

wow, according to that article my guy is actually a japanese fire-belly. thanks for the info!

 

[Jennewt]

That would explain the longevity: Japanese firebellies have been reported with incredibly long lifespans. Every so often, someone shows up on this forum with one that they've had for 10, 15, 20 years or more. Congratulations on keeping it healthy all this time.

JFB are only very rarely sold in the US. If you wanted to add another, you'd have a hard time finding one of the same species. I would caution you against getting a Chinese firebelly as a companion. They often arrive with diseases in pet shops.

 

[Abrahm]

You won't be able to find new animals in a pet shop, but you can find them in our for sale forum on occasion. It depends upon when they breed for people. With captive bred newts you should still quarantine the new animals, but you will have much higher success rates with the new animals. Most captive bred animals are healthy and only have a few days of shipping stress compared to weeks or months. They may be a bit more expensive than your remember, but they are also going to be a lot healthier, and they should live a long time because you know what age they are when you got them.

As for other animals that go well with newts, there really aren't that many. I would never mix amphibian species, even other newt species. You could introduce a disease to an animal that may be fatally susceptible and some animals are too territorial or too different in their care requirements to be be housed together.

A lot of the same problems extend to fish. Many require temperatures that are too warm, some get too large and others have defensive morphologies that may be fatal to the newt, like spines in the fins of many catfish. The only fish I could recommend, and I really wouldn't, would be the Mountain white cloud minnow, which does well at cool temperatures and is quite small.

If you do put fish in their or more newts be aware that your tank will experience a "mini-cycle" where the biological filter must grow to compensate for the influx of nitrogenous waste. This causes a small surge in ammonia, nitrite and then nitrate just like when your tank was first cycled. There will also be more waste being produced with all the dangers that involves.

I would imagine you would do fine, considering the length of time you have kept this guy alive and well. I think it would be good if you perused this article on food.