Question: Could i....

[si]

Hi all, ive (finaly) got my 3 chinese firebelly newts! Id like to thank everyone who gave me advice (can't find a link to get to my previous posts to personally thank people.) I do have 2 more questions though, if anyone can help me?

Ive recently been finding loads of spiders in my house and was wondering if i can put them on the land in my tank for the newts?? i have heard live caught food can carry parasites and was wondering how high the risk was, and if newts will actually eat them!?

Also, has anyone had any experiance with (water) snails in with newts? My hunch is they will become food, but thoght no harm in asking! :happy:

Thanks for your time!! will put some tank pics up soon. simon

 

[fuzzy]

Personally, I wouldn't put any bugs in a newt's tank, exactly for the reason you stated. You don't know if they're carrying anything. I also have removed any small snails from the tank that may have come from live plants or moss that I've bought from the store. Not sure if they would cause damage, I'm just leery about anything "foreign" in my tank that I don't know the origins of.

 

[eldaldo]

I have fed found bugs (mostly worms, ants, pill bugs, and small flies) to my newts without a problem. I use common sense not to collect them from places where there are chemicals/pesticides. never spiders, so I don't know if it would be ok. I feel like this is an area where alot of people use caution, and that is understandable. I sometimes like feeding my newts variety that i don't have to pay for.

As for snails, I have kept the livebearing ones in my tanks for two years now without any problems. the newts don't eat them. They definitely slowly cut down on algae (they just cleaned off the algae covered leaves of my anubias recently).

There is alot of advice against species mixing, but I haven't heard alot of people strongly disagree with snails. I have heard that snails can carry chitryid. So there is a risk involved. I don't know how big it is. Karen's advice is probably the safest to follow. I just felt I should share my experiences as well.

 

[si]

Ok, ill try feeding them eathworms! going to pick some live bloodworm up from the bait shop, so they can feed like they would in the wild! (Sort of!)

Thanks!