Fire belly newt help

[iamtheguy]

So I just got fire belly newts today. They are pretty big but spend a lot of their time on land, I am feeding them choped worms and freeze dried blood worms but how can i feed them if they are mostly on land? I was also wondering if this is an appropriate tank setup its 20 gallons and i only have 2 newts. The third one is the setup I have now, the first two are my previous ones:

https://picasaweb.google.com/103386136551419440796/Vivarium?authkey=Gv1sRgCO2n34a786vMeA#

 

[iamtheguy]

also i have noticed they havent gone in the water too much yet. I got them around three hours ago and i put them in the water to start and they took a lap and swam to the land and havnt gone back in the water ever since. They are fairly young (apperantly 4-7 months old) What should I do and how/when should I feed them?

 

[jane1187]

Hi, I'll just give you my advise but others may advise you differently.

As far as feeding, give then a few days, say 4 or 5 to settle in first before attempting to feed. They've just come to a strange environment from potentially (if you got them from a pet shop who didn;t keep them well) a terrible environment.

You may find that as they settle in they may start to take the wriggling pieces of earthworm but, if they have not been fed these before, it may take them time to get used to their food wriggling.

You may also find that over the next few weeks or month they become more and more aquatic, until you rarely see them on land. In this case you may want to change your set up to a fully aquatic one with a floating land area just in case.

As to the set up as it is now I'll leave others to advise you on that.

EDIT: sorry forgot to mention that once they're in the water they should take frozen bloodworm freely as well as chopped earthworm

Good luck with them, you won't regret it!

 

[Azhael]

The terrestrial tendency is the normal response to the terrible stress and very inadequate conditions they have suffered during the importation and most likely at the shop, too. You will only succeed in getting them to go back to an aquatic life if water conditions are optimal. This means a fully cycled tank, suitable parametres and adequate "furniture" (i.e. lots and lots of plants that float near the surface).
Don´t insist too much with the food as it will only cause further stress and prolong the starvation. Don´t give them freeze dried bloodworms, either, they are rubbish. Stick to the worms.

 

[iamtheguy]

I have cycled the tank for already two weeks. Thanks for all your help

 

[Azhael]

And are you sure the process is complete? Normally it takes about a month...two weeks is only really plausible if the process was jumpstarted.

 

[eminem]

hello, I have 2 fire bellied newts and in terms of feeding I let them hunt for their own food until they were used to their surroundings then I tweezer fed them. I would recommend this way once they are used to you because you can make sure they are both getting the right amount of food and it keeps your tank cleaner

 

[iamtheguy]

Thanks guys, also i have read every where and I do know from owning lots of fish that it takes around 2-3 weeks to cycle a tank. And keep in mind while it was being cycled it was being filtered. I have them without any filter/pump at the moment but I ordered a very small pump off of ebay. It isnt a big pump, and it should not give any current