Am I not welcome here or something?

J

john

Guest
I have been posting questions regarding feeding and what not and noone has responded in like 2 weeks. All the other threads have been responded to and mine just get pushed down. Have I done something to offend anyone here, or what. I just need some help with my newts.
 
Good to here. I have checked similar posts. I even checked some out before I posted. I just had some different concerns. Oh well. Thx for the feedback. Thanks for the link ben. I will continue to post here as it has been very helpful so far. Thx again.

~John

(Message edited by nuggular on December 16, 2004)
 
remember also -besides some of us perm members who have answered similar questions many times before and are thus burned out-many of us are also college students -and last week and this are finals week for many -i got my first break tonight-but i still have a paper to finish and a test to study for. also some of us do hope though that you will seek out the information yourself (through the web site)or that someone else will do so.
 
Hi John,
I checked up your setup - I always recommend to have a totally dry spot when you get new C.o.
Some are in terrestrial "mode" and will become quite stressed out by a very humid environment.
Eventually you might be able to turn them back into an totally aquatic environment.

New C.o. are usually very picky animals, especially in terrestrial phases. They usually only eat when it is dark and when you are not present. All my animals except my terrestrial C.o. handfeed. Be sure to drop very small pieces of worms in with them every now and then and keep an eye on their belly size.
 
Thx Jesper. I was thinking of getting a 20 gallon long and making part of that tank, mabye alittle more than a 3rd land. I was gonna have some bambo in there. Is that an ok plant to have. Or is it toxic in anyway to the newts. I have had the C.O.'s for about over 1/2 year now. It has been just recently that this crazyness happened. I always fed them during the day and they always ate. I will try feeding them at night now. And I will watch there bellies for sure. I saved the life of my first newt named stash, he is the one not eating or going for a swim much. He was emaciated to the point that you could see all his bones and he couldnt swim at all really. The pet store had him in a 15 gallon filled almost to the top, with just a floating piece of styrofoam for land. I bought him and hand fed him back to health. I love the little guy. Thx for all the help. Have a great holiday.
 
I don't think it will be necessary to feed during the night, I feed worm pieces during the day - they keep "alive" for quite some time so the newts can chose when to go for a hunt.
About making a tank part land, the difficult part is to get the land to stay dry. Basically the only way to do this without modifying the tank is to staple stones or bricks etc and put a substrate on top. I tried this but came to the conclusion that
1)The stones/bricks took up a lot of tank volume
2)I needed to glue the stones together

Using substrates to build a dry part is basically impossible, the substrate will suck up water by capillary action and become too wet and also the substrate takes up even more tank volume than the stones. The solution to this is to build a shelf within the tank, the shelf could be removable(the Morg way) or stationary(the Jen Way)
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Jen even made a tutorial how to build a shelf
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http://www.caudata.org/people/JM/divtank.html
 
I was thinking of making a plexy glass barrier. I was gonna sylicone it so it won't leak onto the dry land area. I will make a dry land area today for my newts and keep wiggling worm pieces on it. My newts dont really like the red worms you can get at a bait shop. I read they give off some kind of acidic something that the newts dont like. Its just hard to find small enough things to feed my little newts. I changed the light on my tank to a dimmer light. Should they just have no light on. Is that how they like it.
 
From the newts perspective no lights on is optimal I think, not from mine though
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I try to compromise a bit.

A barrier is one way, it is still a waste of tank volume since you have to fill the dry side with substrate up to the water level on the other side(presuming you don't want an awkward slope on the dry side). A shelf is optimal really. Just my opinion.
 
cool. Ya i was thinkin of useing gravel to fill up the dry side, than I could add some organic soil or some coconut fiber substrate. Would you recommend a feeding dish or something for the worms to stay in.

p.s. You right back really quick, you must check the forum as much as I do. LOL.
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Hehe, yeah this semester I have been home bound writing my thesis so I do visit a tad too often
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Its about to come to an end soon as I am supposed to start working in the end of January...

Yeah a feeding dish is a good idea, mostly for you to keep track of their feeding habits and pick up dead worm pieces.
 
again, there is another issue with advice, and answers...jesper and i illustrate that, we disagree on housing for this species, i agree with what is posted in the CO care sheet-about always keeping them moist (mine are almost exclusively aquatic-but with lots of plants and floating platforms)- especially with new stressed animals (i.e. pet store imports), this becomes an issue which influences input -you will see some long time experienced members who no longer even post replies. some of us respectively restrain ourselves from contradictory input to another persons post, admittedly though if there is bad advice we will step in and address it ..one thing to note is that we all have varying levels of expertise and experience-that is one thing the member profile helps to inform on, if your advice is coming from some teenager (not age biased here but experience biased) with 3 axies and 2 orientalis and not a lot of posts then i'd be wary and side with the person with the more experience.
 
Good news. I got some pinhead crickets last night and put 5 in the tank. 4 were left in the morning, so someone ate one. Then I picked one up with a tweezers and offered it to stash. He ate it. Yeah. Thanks you for all your help guys, it is greatly appreciated. I also got this worm feeder thing. It's a cone with little holes in it. You stick it in the water and fill it partially with bloodworms or blackworms. They slowly crawl out of the holes and it gives the newts a chance to see them. I hope it works. Thx again.
 
Crickets can be a little fast, try putting them in the fridge to slow them down for your newts
 
A minute or so to slow them down. I think the best choice for a land area would be creating a small island with a large rock. Don't stack rocks. You could then add some moss and perhaps a piece of bark for the newts to hide under.
 
Or, concerning the crickets, you could go the more disgusting route and remove the back legs to slow them down....
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You can also try sprinkling them across shallow water as it slows them down and its easier for aquatic newts to get them. Make sure you take out any drowned ones.
 
Ya. Thx for all the ideas guys. I like the back legs one. I have to rip the wings off of all the crickets I feed to my tokay geckos because the cage is in my room and crickets are very noisy. So it wont descust me to rip off the little legs. Go newt power.
 
I just got 2 of the newts that were at petworld. They are just alittle bigger than mine right now. I have them in a 5 gallon for a month quarantine. The one littler of the 2 has only 3 front toes on one of his paws. It looks like it is healed though. I will have to watch it.
 
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