Aquatic newts and impaction from gravel.

[ray]

Is it true that large aquatic newts will suffer from impaction if kept over small gravels (say, pea gravels or aquarium gravel)? I hear a lot about this regarding the care of ribbed newts (Pleurodeles).


(Message edited by triturus on April 01, 2004)

 

[angelina]

Hi ray,
I've heard this a lot too especially concerning Pleurodeles, which is what I have. They tend to be aggressive eaters and can easily swallow the gravel by accident. When I set up my tank for my P. waltls I put in aquarium gravel (in ignorance) because I liked the color. So far they haven't been harmed, but in the near future I'm going to remove it and use some large smooth rocks instead. I don't want to take any chances!
I'm assuming you have Pleurodeles? How is that going?

 

[samuel]

Just an idea here but don't know if it may help u in ur situation.

I feed my orientalis frm the top. I don't scatter food onto the bottom. Using a stick, i'll pick up a bunch of thawed frozen bloodworms and hand feed each orientalis individually. This enables me to monitor their feeding and there's almost zero food left over.

They've come to associate my hand with feeding and always go to the top during feeding. The surface of the water is about as tall as my java fern so they hang on to their leaves while they feed. This way they dun swallow any gravel while they feed too.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jan]

I do something similar to Sam... I feed my orientalis from a small pipette--I think I originally got it from a LFS with live bloodworms--and when she sees the pipette in the water she's hurries over. She'll grab whatever is protruding from it and yank it out, whether it's frozen bloodworms or live blackworms. It's really pretty funny. Sometimes she'll get the pipette tip instead.

Before she was trained to recognize the pipette, I fed her in a small glass bowl on the bottom of the tank, which minimized her getting any gravel.