Question: Few questions

[Scout]

Hi,

I have got a couple fire belly newts.

I have a couple problems with them,

I just moved to a new appartement and had to rebuild the whole setup for my newts and fish.

First off the young newts, they are used to live foods, which i can't give them anymore. Since they are very young they refuse to go into the water, so I now try to give them 2 types of food, turtle food with personally added vitamines and frozen blood worms.

They refuse to eat the turtle food but sometimes they will eat the blood worms, but I think they are very skinny. Is there any way I can make them eat some off the foods I give?

Second off all, I just bought a new newt, an adult one, in the hopes it would show them that the foods I give are actually food. But when I put him in the tank, the first thing he did was dive into the water, instead of going to the other newts.

Now he has been in the tank for about 3 - 4 days, I only saw him swimming and pantering about the first day, now I have not seen him anymore, how long can he stay under water and any idea what to expect?

As for the little ones, I changed their hiding places a bit so that now there is a tiny flow of water in the middle so they would atleast get used to the water, now I was wondering, what kind of natural elements can I add so they get more and better hiding places?

Atm, they have a peice of kork, with a coconutshell which has moss growing on it, sitting ontop of the corck. the round corck is turned upside down so whater hits the edges. They also have a little holed out rock with a plastic plant above it where they can crawl under and enter and exit the water more easily.

As for underwater, lots of plants, a big plastic box and a big rock. (I asume the adult newt, which is very big for an adult, is hiding in this plastic box)

As for other inhabitants of the aquiarium, ive got a couple guppies, platty's, 3 betta's 1 male, 1 red tailed shark, and for the rest a couple of random bottom fishes, and 5 indian mud crawlers.

Any tips on all these things?

Best Regards,
Scout.

 

[Bellabelloo]

Have you read this article ?
Caudata Culture Species Entry - Cynops orientalis - Chinese firebelly

Depending on age , your young newts may not be ready to go into water. I would be surprised if they will eat the turtle food, frozen ( defrosted) blood worm is more suitable...but chopped earthworm is even better.
Was the new newt quarantined for 30 or so days before introducing it first? .How big a difference is there between your small newts and the new addition?
Finally you really should not have those other fish in with your newts, they are unsuitable tank mates for them. Have a look at this article :-
Caudata Culture Articles - Species Mixing Disasters

 

[Scout]

Have you read this article ?
Caudata Culture Species Entry - Cynops orientalis - Chinese firebelly

Depending on age , your young newts may not be ready to go into water. I would be surprised if they will eat the turtle food, frozen ( defrosted) blood worm is more suitable...but chopped earthworm is even better.
Was the new newt quarantined for 30 or so days before introducing it first? .How big a difference is there between your small newts and the new addition?
Finally you really should not have those other fish in with your newts, they are unsuitable tank mates for them. Have a look at this article :-
Caudata Culture Articles - Species Mixing Disasters

Some even refuse to eat the defrosted bloodworms, but I think it is because they are so used to live bloodworms.

As for the adult newt, I did not quarantine him for 2 reasons, the quarantine aquiarium is not suitable for him since it is very small, and second of all, I kinda rescued him from the petshop, he was sitting in a way to small aquiarium, with about 1 cm of water and a filter, and only gravel as bottom, he had no hiding places what so ever.

He was already sitting at that pet shop for more then half a year. I just thought it would be fit to just put him in the big aquarium.

The big aquarium is 80*36*65.

as for ages, I have no idea.
The adult must be quite old, as he is very large, the orange on his belly is slightly faded, and he is either slightly underfed or else he has a lot of rinckly skin.

As for the young ones, tiney, i think maximum age is inbetween 6 months to 1 year.


But I do still hope one question will be answered soon, how long can the adults stay underwater or do they have guils?

 

[Azhael]

Please take pictures if you can, i have a feeling that large adult might be a different species.
Adult newts don´t normally have gills. Only neotenic individuals keep them and they are external and VERY conspicuous. The vast majority of animals reabsorb them during metamorphosis and they disappear entirely.
They do absord oxygen through their skins in addition to breathing air with their lungs, which means that in oxygen-rich waters they can be submerged for a long time, although generally they take a gulp of air every 10-15 min.
I know you acted on the impulse of rescuing that poor animal, but in the future i´d advice you not to. You may be rescuing one animal but you are condemning others to the same fate because the pet-shop owners will replace it with new wild-caught imports.
Quarantine is absolutely essential, very specially if an animal is WC and in a poor state of health. I hope you never skip the quarantine again.

The turtle food is not apropriate, stop offering it to the newts. The staple diet should be earthworms.
If the smaller newts are Hypselotriton (Cynops) orientalis, then the current will not help make them comfortable in the water, but exactly the opposite. The species likes completely still water.

Again, please take pictures.

 

[Scout]

Please take pictures if you can, i have a feeling that large adult might be a different species.
Adult newts don´t normally have gills. Only neotenic individuals keep them and they are external and VERY conspicuous. The vast majority of animals reabsorb them during metamorphosis and they disappear entirely.
They do absord oxygen through their skins in addition to breathing air with their lungs, which means that in oxygen-rich waters they can be submerged for a long time, although generally they take a gulp of air every 10-15 min.
I know you acted on the impulse of rescuing that poor animal, but in the future i´d advice you not to. You may be rescuing one animal but you are condemning others to the same fate because the pet-shop owners will replace it with new wild-caught imports.
Quarantine is absolutely essential, very specially if an animal is WC and in a poor state of health. I hope you never skip the quarantine again.

The turtle food is not apropriate, stop offering it to the newts. The staple diet should be earthworms.
If the smaller newts are Hypselotriton (Cynops) orientalis, then the current will not help make them comfortable in the water, but exactly the opposite. The species likes completely still water.

Again, please take pictures.

I will take pictures when I come back from my work,
I am pretty sure it is also a chinese fire belly newt, as it looks exactly the same as the smaller ones, and does not have the rough texture of the japanese fire belly newt.

As for if it is hiding inside the plastic box under water, there is no way I can get to him. Unless I break down the aquarium, which took me days to set up correctly.

and as for the little ones, you suggest that I get them more dry land again instead of the moist corck?

As for moving water, I have a filter that pumps out 120 Liters per 6 minits, but I have removed all presure adding components on the filter itself, so the water just flows down as if it was a very gently calm creek.

As for noise there is hardly any water noise, for human noise, I am the only living being in the appartement and I'm almoust never home, I never turn on the tv loud, and when I am eating I put on a zen channel and open up the aquarium so they can hear moving water and / or toads etz.

As for the adult, as i said before I have not seen him at all since day 2, which I particulary think is strange.

Water temperatures vary inbewteen 21.5 - 22.5 degrees ceclius. I could set it lower again, but since I already had sick fish before I moved out of the house id like to keep it around that temperature to keep diseases out of the water.

And as for the other inhabitants of the aquarium.

I either have large fish which are atleast twice the seize of the adult newt, not in lenght but in weidthe, as for the rest of the fish, they are tiny and I would not be suprised if the adult would chase and eat them, but you won't hear any grief in that case.

Pictures will come pretty late tonight but they will come.

 

[Azhael]

The fish need to go as soon as possible. They are not suitable companions for your newts (some of those are strictly tropical) and since caudates can chemically sense the pressence of fish, they are causing stress and possibly making the smaller newts avoid the water. They may not enter it while there are any fish around.

 

[Scout]

The fish need to go as soon as possible. They are not suitable companions for your newts (some of those are strictly tropical) and since caudates can chemically sense the pressence of fish, they are causing stress and possibly making the smaller newts avoid the water. They may not enter it while there are any fish around.

Maybe best to put the newts in a seperate tank untill they are full grown then, cause you can't expect me to just remove all the fish and dump them.

Problem then is the only other tank I have is pretty small, only a 25 liter tank.

Current tank is +- 125 Liter tank.

As for not going into the water, when I have to clean their peice of corck i have to remove their hiding spot, one then goes calmly to the other hiding spot on the rock underneath the plastic plant, and the other one will jump into the water. They will return later on the day back into their original hiding spot when it is cleaned.

And I have got one, which has already gotten the name clingong, as I don't know how but he always seems to disappear for about 1 - 2 weeks, then suddenly reappear for a couple days n then just dissapear again.

 

[Scout]

Ok I uploaded some pictures:
http://www.caudata.org/photoplog/file_original-size-3823.jpg
http://www.caudata.org/photoplog/file_original-size-3824.jpg
http://www.caudata.org/photoplog/file_original-size-3825.jpg

I only took 1 picture of 1 of the newts back, I wanted to take more pictures but I accidentely bumped into the hiding cave and spooked the one on top, I didnt want to scare them any more.

As for the large adult new, still no sign what so ever of him, as for a proper description, he looks exactly as azeals avatar, except for the guil like thing on the side of its head is 1 round plate instead of that shaped plate, and the tail has a flat area above and below instead of just below as on azaels picture. and as for his size i didn't mesure him but he seems inbetween 12 - 14 cm.

As for taking air, when I bought him I only saw him go up to surface once, but i never even saw him stick his head out for air.

Any ideas if he is still alive, how to get him out of his hiding spot without breaking down the aquarium?


and as for the little ones they have eaten a bit of the frozen foods now, but definatly not much, but for their size, they don't seem underfed so I am not so worried, just the tiniest one still hasent shown himself again for about 4 days now.



"quick edit": GOOD NEWS, I found the adult newt back, if you look on the pictures, he is hiding under the fake rock on the left side, in one of the caveties in it, weird thing, he is hiding under water, I found him since he popped his head out, he might be able to breathe under water since there might be a big bubble of air inside the underwater cave bit thingy.

I want to take him out to put him into a seperate container for a while, but is it whise, cause it would mean that i have to break down a part of the hiding places of the young newts?