To heat or not to heat

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albear28

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Corey
I have a 75 gallon Exo terra tank with 5 Eastern newts with some ghost shrimp, guppies, and 4 White lipped tree frogs. I have a Tetrafauna Viquarium with a Tetrafauna decorative reptofilter waterfall and I use heat lamps for the tree frogs but I don't think my water is warm enough even though my newts are quite active and well fed. I'm looking at the Tetra Turtle Aquarium Heater which is automatically set at 78 degrees. Should I buy this heater. Also what plants are good in a tank with Eastern newts?
 
Almost all newts are cold water creatures, so no heating is required. Eastern newts specifically are very intolerant of warm water and will quickly sicken and die if exposed to tropical conditions for any length of time.
 
Hi Corey, I totally agree with Chinadog re the temperature for your Eastern newts. Does your home drop below 55F? These newts would prefer it cooler as the water is able to hold more dissolved oxygen for these active animals.
Now, this is all complicated by your inclusion of other animals. Guppies prefer warm water and I'm not sure about the tree frogs but I bet they'd prefer it warmer than your newts.

Caudata Culture Species Entry - Notophthalmus viridescens - Eastern Newt
 
Also, I just wanted to point out, species mixing is extremely bad and difficult to do, even if your animals don't kill each other. Sorry to put it bluntly, but it's the truth. This mix is especially bad due to the newts being toxic, tree-frogs being large enough to eat said newts and die from it, tree-frogs needing to climb and newts needing large water areas, and newts needing cool water and the tree-frogs needing warmer temperatures, each out of range of each other. Here's some helpful articles to help you figure out what to do about making different tanks for them: Caudata Culture Articles - Species Mixing Disasters Caudata Culture Species Entry - Notophthalmus viridescens - Eastern Newt Frog Forum - White's Tree Frog Care - Litoria caerulea (And white-lipped tree-frogs have the same care as the White's tree-frog as well) Caudata Culture Articles - Cycling Caudata Culture Articles - Preventing Escape Caudata Culture Articles - Food Items for Captive Caudates And for your sake and your animals sake, I really hope you read some of the very helpful articles I provided!:D
 
I've been a member of this site for a while and have this discussion before in 2012 when I had even more of a variation in my 55 gallon tank. The tree frogs have heat lamps than don't affect the water temperature. My bed room is usually about 78 degrees so the tanks water temperature without a heater is at a decent temperature. The interaction of the tank is fine because the animals don't interact or fight for food. I don't have them yet but Fire bellied toads have been in a 55 gallon tank for fire belly newts before successfully before.
 
Terrible idea to house eastern newts with tree frogs.

Tree frogs will pass waste in form of urea or uric acid, and will very quickly poison the newts should the tree frog droppings & excrement land in the water.
 
At 78 degrees the Eastern newts are already on borrowed time.
 
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Just my observation, but my eastern newts seem at their healthiest, being most active and interactive when I can keep the water temp in the low 60s. That is usually in the Fall/Winter months. I personally try to maintain the water temp around 72F in the summer, with the occasional few day where it might go over 75F).

I don't know much about tree frogs, so I don't have much to comment about them, but I would think that tree frogs should be able to tolerate lower than ideal temperatures (for tree frogs) much better than newts would tolerate higher than ideal temperatures (for newts).

I've kept guppies with eastern newts before. I have read many comments about how much fish stress out newts and generally live in 'fish-less ponds'. I've found that newts will stalk, and endlessly follow guppies. My only issue was that if the newts don't eat the babies the guppies multiply too fast and start making twezer feeding a necessity for the newts to get food before the guppies swarm in. They were feeder guppies so my ACF tank go some live snacks once they became too much of a nuisance. As for fish-less pond, I honestly don't know if those exist in the US, and I have personally found newts consistently in ponds and lakes with large populations of aggressive predatory fish. One pond in particular has several species of predatory fish in decent numbers while still having a huge newt population.

Corey, you seem set on keeping the tree frogs with the newts, so I'm going to try to give you some constrictive advise under that premise (I think the other users have the species mixing covered as it pertains to the tree frogs and I agree, but they've already covered that). I would urge you to try to keep the water temperature at least around or under 75F which is the max recommended for eastern newts. I think mid to low 70s is considered the 'night time' temp for some tree frogs which isn't ideal for them as an all day temp, but I think it being a little colder for the frogs is better than consistently stressing out the newts with temps above their long-term tolerance. As for your question regarding plants, whatever grows and is healthy in your tank will be good for your newts. I would suggest getting a small portion of plants coined as being easy to grow and see how they do. Some plants that I think would be good starter plants are: hornwort, anacharis, frogbit, or water sprite. Once you have a little success getting any of those to grow and get established then you can try adding other plants that you like, but do your research about what those plants require. The ones I listed should do ok under a variety of conditions.
 
Fish less ponds do exist naturally, or bodies of water in general. Most Ambystoma species (Also a few others, Notophthalmus for example) breed in ephemeral ponds, which dry in the summer. Sphagnum bogs typically lack fish as well, and newts can handle more water issues (Draining, lower amount of plants to lay eggs, fishermen, ect) than fish, even though they have their limits as well
 
Heat is almost never necessary with any caudates unless you are at risk of freezing. Your temps are far from ideal, anytime going above 70F for prolonged periods increases the risk of infections and other problems. You say that the heat lamp does not increase the temp of the water which cannot possibly be true; you are heating a small environment in a room thats already too hot. Species mixing is also another no-no and while no negative effects are obvious to you that doesn't mean they do not exist. Stubbornly insisting that its fine instead of just ponying up $20 for another 10 gallon tank to keep both your frogs and newts properly is a bad way to go.
 
You're right Xavier, there are vernal/temporary ponds, bogs and similar acid bodies of water. I was making that comment thinking about permanent ponds/lakes. I was just trying to point out that fish and newts coexist a lot in nature, at least with eastern newts in northeast US. But it is harder to do so in an aquarium environment that is infinitely smaller than any situation in nature.

Anyway, that's not what this thread is about. I fully agree with Perry. The temperature is definitely a big issue. I had a newt tank on the 2nd floor of my home in an area where I struggled to control temperatures in the summer and tried to use fans to keep that tank cool. I had a few infections happen when I couldn't control the temp and the water got over 75F even with the fans. I had to empty the tank and move it downstairs where I have barely seen the water temps get above 70F and haven't had those issues since.
 
Kind of off topic here but the fishless bodies of water topic jogged my memory.

Years ago I went fishing on a massive pond in upstate NY. It was in the middle of a huge field near a farm. It was PACKED with large mouth bass. But all along the reedy and mossy shores were hundreds of eastern newts. TONS. now they all looked to stay in this shore area which was probably only a few inches deep. Doubt many ventured past that and doubt many large mouth bass could get near the shore. But both species were in abundant supplies. And here in VA there is a river I like to hike by..and again in the shallows and edges of this river are many newts and trout, bass, and sunfish out in the depths. But that's nature. It knows what it's doing. I've done the guppy/newt thing years ago but the guppies would slowly dissapear. I've kept tree frogs, but as someone pointed out they like different geographical-for lack of better words-set ups. One likes heights and one likes lengths. The only way I could see pulling this off is if you had a MASSIVE and mean massive vivarium...like the ones you see in zoos. Like the size of a small room.
 
Mixing different species together in the same tank, especially species that have completely different requirements Is a risky business. Apart from the danger of disease contamination, competition for food or intra specific aggression, the tank itself, instead of providing optimal conditions where one species can thrive, ends up being a compromise somewhere between the requirements of each animal so that both species can just about survive.
There are never, ever, any benefits whatsoever for the animals involved, even ones with broadly similar needs, only risks, so why do it? Ultimately, the animals are the losers every time, just so you can see two or more species mixed together in the same tank.
 
This just sounds terrible. The only time in 20 years of keeping salamanders I had major disease issues is when I tried to keep them in the upper 70s one year and disease hit multiple species killing some, never had an issue again after moving back to cooler temps.
 
About fish and newt. My dad said you could buy newts worms and leaches. All at the bait shop 55 years ago. :eek:
 
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