Newt

[Phase2]

My son has just brought a cold water newt......I know little about them. If any one can give us information concerning feeding and care we would be grateful.

 

[playfulalliecat]

I had a couple of the reb bellied newts a while back. They were a bit hard to care for in my opinion and I ended up losing both of them. What I did was take a 10 gallon (US) tank and put gravel in to make a higher side for "land" and a lower side with water. Then I had a small filtration unit for an amphibian tank which just ran off of an air pump. Problem was neither of them ever went in the water at all! They just stayed in one corner of the land part and never moved unless I moved them. To feed them I woudl put meal worms right in front of their noses and maybe once every 2 weeks one of them would actually attack one and eat it. I really think starvation is what killed the first one. I tried putting them in the water with brine shrimp, small feeder fish, tubifex worms and nothing worked. After the one died, I took my chances with the other one and put it in the tropical community tank. Now mind you, in the past, I had kept them in community settings so figured nothing from nothing, maybe I'd succeed with him. Well all was ok for a few days and then he disappeared! We searched the tank really well and all around it. We have even moved since then and never found anything anywhere in the apartment! Strange, huh? We think possibly it crawled up in the trim around the top of the tank but have never smelled it or anything.

Let me know how you fair with yours as I would love to have some more but the last bad experience has made me shy away!

Allie

 

[crimsontsavo]

I have one that was caught at the local creek.
I set up a goldfish bowl (he's TINY) with cycled sand and added water in less than half the bowl. So roughly three inches of sand then two inches of water. Made a ledge for the newt to hide under out of bog wood/bark( mines nocturnal) and made sure it had an area to get out of the water. Put a live plant in there with him too. Eventually he's going into my community tank.
He eats live mosquito larva and tubifex worms. Had him a month or so I guess and he's doing great!
HTH'S!

 

[bstier]

My mom used to (still does) take care of my sisters red bellied newt. It seems that fancy tanks and equipment sortof take their tole on the little guys. A small cage with a wood log and a rock for some shelter are good. Also, they love frozen shrimps..

 

[Opcn]

Now Maby I'm wrong but if it doesn't have a spine then it just might not be a newt I think the best way to keep a newt is with lots of things to hide under (in a combo aquarium / terarium) with a revers flow under gravle filterthat pumps all the water into the high point on your sand/ gravel so as to keep every thing nice and wet. good luck


Opcn

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

i can post my current setup/what i'd do, and i made a pic to halp explain but i dunno how to post it... if you tell me how to post it i'll help you

 

[vantgE]

My brother has 2 fire bellies he used to feed them blood worms every day but then his dwarf frogs got fat (realy fatm, top to botom about 2 inches, only 1 inch long) so he feeds them once every three days (the lfs said once or twice a week) with about a third of the blocks of the frozen bloodworms that come in the pklastic thing with all the separtae blocks. he just staked som broken rocks one broke sorta with a little bit of a V shape and another rock is over it these are fairly large rock, and the bottom of the V shaped rock has water in the base that is where the newts like to go, and where the dwarf frogs ang white cloud minnows swim up to steel xtra bloodworms, tubiflex worm will also be eaten. The newts don't move off the rock much the climb all the way up the glass so make sure you have a lid, sometimes the do go swimming but mostly only after we have picked them up and placed them in the water. He uses an undergravel filter that has been cut down to filter the tank.

Alot of jibberish but hope it helps