Substrate, lighting and plant questions...

[nicholas]

I'd like to give my newts something to provide better footing on the bottom of the tank. They cheaper the better, and I'm looking for soemthing natural. My question is, should it be bigger that what they can swallow or is sand or small pebbles fine? Also, in your setups, how do you go about feeding yoru newts? I feed my newts black worms and occasionally frozen blood worms. How do I go about keeping the tank from being overrun by black worms. I know with substrate in the tank, it might be harder to keep them from taking over.

I'd also like some advice on plants: I've got java moss in my tank, and so far, I've got a regular, non uv bulb shining in the tank during the day. I've got a 55 gallon tank that is half full of water and I'd really like to see the java moss take over, so that the newts have some cover wherever they go. Are the cheap, regular fluorescent coil bulbs being sold at stores everywhere enough as a uv source?

thanks in advance everyone.

 

[jennifer]

It's really difficult to feed them live blackworms and have any kind of substrate. Anything you put in there will provide hiding places for the blackworms. I'd suggest either forget about substrate, or find a different food source. You might be able to use a very thin layer of fine sand - leave one corner of the tank sandless as a feeding area (if you pour the water from water changes into one corner, that corner will be sandless).

Newts don't need UV, so any flourescent bulbs should be OK. You can buy "Plant and aquarium" flourescent bulbs cheaply at Walmart in the regular lighting department (not pets).

 

[edward]

If you are using a two bulb system and use a cool white in one socket and a warm white in the other socket you can get the same result as using plant bulbs with a much lower cost.

Ed