Mix eastern newt with ribbed newt?

[newtmember]

Hello, excuse me for not introducing myself first. I'm in a very urgent situation. I have 7 eastern newts and they're all been doing fine. Recently I've acquired two baby larvae of some sort of newt, I saw they were cramped in a 1 gallon nano, so I bough them home with my eastern newts. My eastern newt have never been aggressive with one another, heck they don't even care about each other. The larvae was dropped in with the eastern newts and each goes their own way. Recently however, the larvae morph into Ribbed Newt. The eastern have always been fine the biggest one I have is about 4 inches, the Ribbed newt however, have grow at a lighting rate, and now is 5 inches. I feed them everyday and see everything getting their own food, recently what worries me was I saw the ribbed newt chewing on my eastern newt leg. Eastern newt just does not care at all. I temporarily separate the newts I don't have another tank cuz I only have one 55 gallons to keep all them in

 

[Chinadog]

Hi, we;come to the site!
Apart from cross contamination of disease, that's an especially bad mix, I would say its only a matter of time before either the eastern newts get limbs ripped off or worse, or the ribbed newts get strangled/drowned by being amplexed by the male easterns.
Eastern newts are notoriously delicate in captivity, so if yours are healthy at the moment it would be a real shame to stress them out by forcing them to share a tank with the Ribbed newts.
This article should give you an idea how things can go wrong.
Caudata Culture Articles - Species Mixing Disasters

 

[newtmember]

Really? Eastern newt are delicate? I'm not trying to sass or anything but..... when I keep my eastern newt I've had them for a long time, they just do their own thing, I don't change water very often maybe once every 6 months or so because every time I change water the gravel get blow up and the tank become cloudy. Whenever I go on Vaca or figure I don't have enough time for my newt I just put them in my fridge until I'm back from Vaca or done with studying for final and what not.... I though they're the easiest newt to care for....

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

 

[Otterwoman]

I agree with Chinadog that they are delicate, but I congratulate you in your success keeping them. I think that the eventual size disparity will definitely lead to some deaths if you house the two species together.

 

[ChristineB]

It's worth buying another tank for the ribbed newts, they're so active and entertaining. They'll be big enough to eat Eastern newts in a few months and they're very greedy.

 

[newtmember]

I have to either choose the eastern newt or the ribbed, I can't have both..... no pet store around my area willing to take ribbed newt...nor eastern....eastern is being hibernated atm so the two ribbed is in the 55 gallons. For now I think I'll just switch hibernation to keep the newt separate until someone can take either eastern or ribbed newt off my hand.... I don't know if switch hibernation is a good idea though, I'm planning on keeping eastern in fridge for 1 month and then swap out ribbed in the fridge for 1 month while the eastern live in the 55. Isn't there truly no other way to Mix them?

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

 

[Chinadog]

Its a terrible idea, bordering on cruelty in my opinion. Newts live on a yearly cycle and become torpid once a year when light levels are low and the temperature falls, forcing them to to endure it once every four weeks because you didn't bother doing any research before getting more animals is unacceptable.
Aquatic newts can be temporarily housed in cheap plastic storage boxes quite happily, so there's really no reason to try 'hibernating' any of them. Just set them up in a temporary tub and offer them up for re-homing in the forum's trade section.

 

[ChristineB]

PetSmart sells 20 gallons for $20 on sale, or a large storage tub would be even cheaper. I agree that alternate hibernation seems like you didn't think it through. Housing 7 newts in your fridge for a month to save less than $20 would be bananas! Much less to do it month after month. You could try dividing your tank, but that's probably still a temporary solution. If you're not prepared to get them a tank I agree rehoming the ribbed newts would be best.