Decreasing my water depth.... how?

[Neuter]

Seems clear enough to me, but I figured there is no harm in asking.

I want to put a larger land area in my 10 gallon tank. My orientalis fire belly has an injured tail which makes it a bit sluggish and it has trouble swimming up. My tank is mostly water, with a small land area that can only be gotten to by swimming to the top, or climbing some plants which he has not done in a week.

My filter clips onto the side of the tank and because of it's shape, I have to keep the tank filled with 10 or 11 inches of water. The filter itself is great, it keeps the tank pretty clean.

I am going to go get a bunch of rocks outside and try to fill up half the tank with rocks, so that the water is effectivley much more shallow and it will be much easier for the newt to get onto a land area. I'll boil the rocks to clean them of anything dangerous on them.

Thoughts?

 

[Mark]

Rock piles will make cleaning the tank difficult and give your newt new places to hide which in turn will make monitoring harder.

I favor a simple platform made out of bricks and slate. If the newt has difficulty moving due to a wound I'd suggest a temporary, simple set-up with shallow water and an island of some description. It'll save you modifying the existing set-up.