The drift wood is probably better unless you have a huge tank, because the slope would take up too much of the available space for the water. You want to use as much space for water as possible and put a lot of aquatic plants in there so that the water quality can be easily maintained, as well as the temperature.
I feed mine when they are on their floating cork piece. I thaw out the frozen bloodworms in a washed out Gatorade cap, add some powdered Calcium with D3 and no phosphorus, stir it up with a toothpick when thawed, and feed it to each of them on that toothpick. They all take to it just fine and seem to really relish it. It seems to be one of the few foods I can get them all to eat. I like doing it this way because I know it is more nutritious for them with the calcium on it than not, and it creates much less waste than just tossing it in. I also can keep track of which ones are eating and how much. Blood worms are not the only things I feed them though. I give them gut loaded crickets, red worms cut in half served with tongs, and chopped night crawlers on toothpicks that have a newt food pellet stuffed in there. Some of them will eat newt food pellets on their floating cork piece especially if given it by tongs. I also give them mealworms. Not all newts eat all kinds of food. I have only one that will eat anything and she is rather robust and healthy. She has outlasted some other tank mates.
I hope this helps you. Just keep trying new foods and present them in new ways, and eventually you will find something that works. When you do, come back to it, but keep rotating with other foods for variety.
Well I bought 2 firebellied newts probably a week ago and there not eating
