Getting back into the hobby

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PhilbertCoffee

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I have had common Eastern Newts most of my life, but now I want to try some more exotic species such as Alpine or Marbled if I can find some. I have a 20 long with 6 adult Notophthalmus viridescens and now I am looking to start a 40 gallon as well. I have had the red bellied Chinese and Hong Kong newts a few times and kept them alive up to 20 years. I always train my newts to take freeze-dried tubifex worms from my finger, as live food is not easy to come by. I supplement with newt pellets for the shy ones. I am not up on all the "recent" developments in the hobby, so I could use suggestions on a tank setup. I see there are some products available now that I never dreamed of as a kid. For instance, is the new LED lighting good for newts?
 
Welcome! Funny; I have alpine newts but would kill for the good old fashioned eastern newt I had once as a kid! We don't often see them for sale where I am (Minnesota). The guy who bred my alpines breeds one of the eastern subspecies, but I like the traditional easterns with the red spots.

I'm a fairly newt keeper so I don't have much sage advice, but it seems pretty simple and standard with basic aquarium care: good sized tank, good filtration, decent lighting for your plants. I have a Marineland LED over my 20 long, and it gets the job done.

Good luck!
 
I also have an urge for Eastern newts again, here in the UK (at least where I live) you could readily buy them in larger pet shops and they were second only to orientalis in terms of availability. They were the first amphibian I kept and bred (a happy accident) as a kid, now over 20 years later they are strangely rare - we can get all sorts of previously difficult to find species (CB kaiseri etc.) but none of the adorable little Easterns.

One trick I used to get them to take freeze dried food is to gently blow it across the surface of the water with a thin drinking straw, like you said they become very tame and queue up for feeding after a while!

Anyway good luck sourcing your future pets.
 
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    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
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  • Thorninmyside:
    Not necessarily but if you’re wanting to continue to grow your breeding capacity then yes. Breeding axolotls isn’t a cheap hobby nor is it a get rich quick scheme. It costs a lot of money and time and deditcation
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    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
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  • Clareclare:
    Would Chinese fire belly newts be more or less inclined towards an aquatic eft set up versus Japanese . I'm raising them and have abandoned the terrarium at about 5 months old and switched to the aquatic setups you describe. I'm wondering if I could do this as soon as they morph?
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