Water depth etc

[ida]

Hello! New here, from Sweden, have two Japanese fire bellied newts. Have had them awhile, but from the start I had them in my tropical aquarium... My trusted LFS owner said the only difference would be that their metabolism would go up. Sounded reasonable to me at the time

but obviously I noticed that this was not the case. After finding my way here, I set up a terrarium for them instead. It is square in shape (55 cm by 55cm) and a quarter is land area with soil and plants. The only thing is the ventilation strip on the front is just a few inches up after which there are sliding glass doors in the front. Which means I can only get about 4 inches of water. The tank is filtered, looks and works great, plus I don't have room/money to buy a whole new tank. will this work for my two newts? Here there is a law, yes a law

, that salamanders and newts up to 15 cm must have at least 10 cm of water. Thats what theyre getting now. Is this okay? I really don't want just good enough, I want the best possible. I wish I could give a pic but Im having trouble loading them onto my puter...sorry.
Thanks again for you time everyone!
IDA

 

[jennifer]

Welcome, Ida

How is the land area arranged? (Does it reduce the water volume? And can it be changed?) If the newt have a total area of 55x55x10cm of water, I think that is fine. However, if the land arrangement reduces the water by much, then it may not be enough.

Also, are the newts completely aquatic? And are you sure they are JFB (pet shops often get this wrong too).

Some hopefully-helpful links:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/setups1.shtml
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/firebelly.shtml

 

[ida]

Thanks for the reply! Yes I have checked that they are JFBs already, I'm 99.9% sure thats what they are as well. Yes, I guess the land area does take up some space, it's two pieces of glass siliconed together and to the sides of the terrarium so that it becomes a square, a fourth of the total space. So the water they get is the rest, which is 55cm by 55cm by 22.5cm by 22.5cm.(with the land area in the way in one corner so to speak) Hope thats not too hard to understand. They almost never use the land area, it just looks really good with the plants and moss i guess. If this isn't a good set up, is there any way to change it since Ive siliconed?
IDA

 

[ida]

I do now that I think of it, have another fish tank that I usually use for QT purposes. It's 1 foot by 2 feet. I could use that so they would get more water depth, but there still wouldnt be more area as in the current one(land area included). Plus the tank they're in looks so nice and they are all well and happy in there too. But if I can get the land area away tho its siliconed I will, and make a land area out of rocks, driftwood, and corkbark. Thanks again!
Btw is there any land plants that are so aquatic that their roots can be almost completely in water and their leaves out? (planning this already)
I really do want to use the current terrarium they are in but I heard from the LFS store that the siliconed part can just be cut away with a sharp knife. Do you think that I should go ahead and do that to at least make their water volume a bit larger? I just need to know that the depth of 10 cm is okay.

(Message edited by OSCAR28 on September 15, 2006)

 

[ida]

Here are some images of my setup. Note the water goes slightly above the black edge. I've taken the glass sliding doors off for clearer viewing.
/image{setup}

/image{setup}

/image{setup}

 

[jennifer]

The tank looks wonderful.

Since the island is siliconed in place, there is no point trying to change it. Your total water volume may be a little small, but with only 2 newts it is enough. Just be sure to do at least the recommended partial water changes (20% per week or more) without fail, and it'll be OK I think. My only other suggestion is that you could increase the water volume (and decrease difficulty of cleaning) by decreasing the amount of sand.

I know of two common kinds of houseplants that can grow with roots in water, pothos (devil's ivy) and wandering jew. Both are illustrated here:
http://www.caudata.org/people/JM/plants.html

 

[ida]

Thanks for the reply! Although I already have changed the setup completely to give more water area. They were never up on the soil area, and even though it looked great, I think that it was best to remove it. It was well drained, but I still thought that the soil might foul and the plants get too big. And it was quite large. I talked to the LFS store owner and he said that I could cut the silicon out. It wasn't the easiest, and there where a bit of leftovers that I couldn't get off, but after a while I got it all out. The newts had to stay in the QT, thought that they would get scared but the two hugh worms that I found in the island got put in the QT tank with them. When I put it all back....the worms where gone. hehe
Now the water volume is greater, and the surface they have is much larger than the 20 G long I have. The only concern now is the water depth. I could put a piece of glass over the ventilation strip in the front and silicon it in place, so as to be able to fit in another inch or so of water, but I think that ventilation strip is necessary, the one on top is only 3 inches wide where i have my aquarium light for the plants.
Anyway, tell me what you think and I can post some new pics of the tank once I get the time. The thing I was thinking of most was the height that i would lose, but I think I fixed it pretty well.
IDA
Ill post some pics of the old vs new setup in the pics section.

(Message edited by OSCAR28 on September 16, 2006)