New paludarium set-up

[DesCallaghan]

Dear Caudata community,

This is my first post, so maybe it would be good to start with a photo of my tank set-up, which I've built myself from scratch. It will house Triturus carnifex once its settles down and the plants become established. The water is filtered by two Eheim 2080 and a peristaltic pump provides a constant input of water that compensates for evaporation and provides a 20% per week water change (overflow is through a drilled hole in the left-hand side, which goes to the surface water drainage). I'll be collecting some mosses this evening for planting (I think I'll try Sphagnum fallax, Polytrichum commune and perhaps one or two others). Any comments would be welcome. Hope you like it.

Best wishes,
Des

 

[Azhael]

Welcome to the forum.
That tank sure looks nice, however there are a few concerns. First, the gravel. It´s not a good substrate, and even less so for such voracious and crazy newts as T.carnifex. If accidentally ingested it can cause impaction and death.
Additionally, having gravel slopes as high as the ones you have is asking for trouble. You see, waste gets trapped in the deeper parts of the slope, and even though you have a filter, it´s likely that with time, flow in those areas will become minimal. When that happens, conditions will become anaerobic as the oxygen gets used and then anaerobic bacteria will flourish which can cause havoc in your water chemistry as they rot the waste trapped there.
Also, how big is the volume of water? T.carnifex get rather big, and they are quite active, they will need a lot of space.
Finally, in captivity they can be considered almost 100% aquatic, so all the terrestrial areas are pretty much a waste. That volume would be better used for more water volume, thus ensuring more available space and a bigger volume of water (which means more stability). All they really need is a piece of floating cork bark to haul onto every now and then (and many don´t ever use it).

 

[Dreamtheory]

very nice tank set-up! how many gallons is it?

 

[Joost]

Azhael is right, but my setups are based on the same principe, and it works very well for me, for about 17 years. I wonder how that is. I've never used sand before, and I shall not also.