Fire bellies and Emperors

[Baileyj169]

First of all I have a few fire bellied newts and they will not eat. I have tried bloodworms (freeze dried), waxworms, red wigglers, baby guppies, pinhead crickets and grass hoppers. I don't know what else to do, any suggestions are welcome! Second, I would like to know if there is any information on housing fire bellied newts with emperor newts. I know that mixing species is not the best idea, but I am curious as to the opinions, because they originate from the same locality...

 

[onetwentysix]

How are you keeping the firebellies, and what temperature are they at? That might play a factor in why they might not be eating.

As for keeping the Emperor newts with the firebellies, this is not a good idea. Just because they're both from Asia doesn't necessarily mean that they share habitat. It might also help to point out what species of Emperor newt you have; unless you bought captive bred animals, I think that it's just been shanjing that's been imported into the US recently, for the most part, and they're a very terrestrial species. If you have Tylototriton shanjing, habitat requirements would be very different from Cynops orientalis (Chinese Firebellies).

 

[Jennewt]

There are some suggestions for non-eating newts in the FAQ (link in my sig line). Some other suggestions would be frozen bloodworms offered from a toothpick (with much patience), or tail tips from Canadian nightcrawlers (available from bait shops or walmart). Are the newts staying on land or water?

FBN and emporers are very different in size and habitat. I would strongly discourage mixing them.

 

[grunsven]

Lions and zebra's also co-occur, they even share habitat but that does not mean you can house them together.

Why don't you try live bloodworms?

 

[Baileyj169]

The fire bellies are being kept at 68 degrees farenheit, and are going back and forth between land and water. My other fire belly (not in the same cage because he's really aggressive) is doing great so I don't know what the problem could be. I'll try the night crawlers and some frozen bloodworms and see how that goes.
As for the emperor newts I have decided to give them their own mostly terrestrial tank due to different needs. They are captive bred emperors, but I do not know which species they are.