Fire Belly Newt planning

The tank looks good as a starting point. Firebellies come from cold still ponds with heavy weed growth, so there should always be plenty of live plants for them to hang out in. Its not important what kind of plants, but they should be fast growing species like Hydracotile, Bacopa, or any of the cheap pondweed type plants that petstores sell in bunches. The bunched stuff can be anchored to the bottom or left to float. Whatever ones you go for there should be plenty of stems and leaves floating at the surface, the newts will spend a good deal of their day up in the plants, so they are very important, especially when trying to help stressed, newly imported ones recover and adapt to captivity.
With enough live plants a filter isn't needed and many people don't bother. I do run filters on all my tanks, but any water movement needs to be completely diffused. I do this by using a spray bar on the outlet that's pushed into a long piece of filter sponge. Java moss can be grown on the sponge to hide it and if you fix it up so it breaks the surface, it makes a great natural looking island.
 
Oh, I have moving water and rocks in the aquarium. Maybe I should aim for paddle-tails?

I'm having a bad time finding a staple food for them.

Anyways, I have been eyeing these plastic lily pads, I think it will be a nice land area for the newts.
 
Problem is my lighting isn't capable to do so. I have plastic plants but I really try to avoid anything fake. That is why I'm thinking of using Indian Almond Leaves as cover and hide underwater and on land.
 
Maybe you could put your newts in a bright place, like a living room (Not by a window, glass heats up sunlight)
 
I've tried so hard to grow anacharis and duckweed in this tank and the lighting just doesn't support it. I have the tank in the living room. If it was able to you wouldn't see a tank with sand, rocks and drifwood. I've went for newt because they don't require specific lighting and they were available in my area.
 
You guys are really emphasizing "no water movement". Would it really hurt them pretty bad If there was? Or is it just basically just to copy their habitat?
 
It would bother them if it was really intense, you could put something to block the current if you really need to use the filter
 
Water movement can make the newts leave the water, especially newly imported ones that are already stressed and fragile. They aren't like fish, they can vote with their feet!
If you do buy petstore newts, the best way of helping them recover is to provide perfect conditions. Cold, clean, still water that's rammed with plants is the proven way of giving them the best chance of surviving, its so cheap and simple to do, yet many people put them in warm, bare thanks with a whirlpool producing filter and can't understand why they refuse to get wet and spend their short captive lives trying to escape.
This is an old link, but its still 100% relevant today, unfortunately.

http://www.caudata.org/people/JM/firebelly.html
 
The water movement isn't that strong, so I'm guessing it would not bother them. If it does I'll replace it or just turn it off. I don't see them getting drag around by the water because I kept small fish in here and they where just still and not always in constant move.

I'm working with the food that are available in my area at the moment, unfortunately the earthworms are rare and the only available was mealworms, cichlid pellets and reptomin. These are my top 3 staple for the newts, I'm still aiming for the earthworms.

The only problem I see at the moment is the plants. I will have to put plastic plants, I will have to sacrifice my aesthetic for the sake of the newts.
 
Plastic plants are still great. It's a good thing you're making sacrifices, as most people will just make the tank look really aesthetic, but not care for the well being of the animals
 
Well If we, the humans, confiscate them from nature where they really came from and cage them in a limited space. I think we should also do sacrifices just like what they did.

I may have to ask the seller If they were captive bred though, I think I won't be able to take in wild newts it just unsettling for me. The seller do keep them in a densely plastic planted tank with a terrastrial land. They seem to be happy and not shy so I'm guessing they where captive bred and just hopefully boycott the plastic plants and the leaf litter will be enough hide.
 
The newts, if they're H/C orientalis, they're guaranteed to be WC. Nobody takes the time to breed H/C orientalis when you can get a large amount for like 50 cents
 
All Asian newts that are sold through petstores or aquarium shops are wild caught, it simply it's impossible for them to sell them for the price they do without making a loss. The species sold take between 1-3 years to grow to a size that they'll stock, so somebody has to house and feed them all that time. Think about it, they can't break even by selling them for $14 each or whatever.
Its common for petstores to lie about where their newts come from, don't be fooled by them claiming they're captive bred or captive farmed, its just not true.

Why not put a wanted add in the trade section on here? It may take a little patients, but captive bred firebellies do come up for sale from time to time. Captive bred ones are normally healthy and happy in captivity with none of the many stress related sicknesses you get with the starved imports.
 
I did a tad bit of reading in the site and I noticed a Cynops specie, C. Pyrrhogaster. It looks so much like the C. Orientalis except more hardy? I think I should be keeping C. Pyrrhogaster because everything I read about C. Orientalis is pretty bad. Also It has a wide temperature preference which might help keep them alive.

They both look very similar, how do I differentiate them to each other? The newts in my LFS have a non-heated aquarium and the temperatures goes about 75F so based from what I read C. Orientalis should be stressed and suffering under this temperatures. I'm starting to think that those are C. Pyrrhogaster.

How devastating It kinda ruins my passion on C. Orientalis :/, I'm kinda thrown about it.
 
C/H orientalis can be a good captive, just not from a pet-store that sells WC specimens. If you have really changed your mind about C/H orientalis, and you want C. pyrrhogaster, C. pyrrhogaster are larger, have more distinct poison glands, and have bumpy skin, and pointed tails. This article may help you distinguish the species: Caudata Culture Articles - Firebelly
 
I'm gonna try to find someone but I think that would be hard considering China and Philippines are very close in regarding buisness and trade.

I feel uneasy with international trading, I might be interested If someone from Asia like maybe Indonesia, Thailand or even the Philippines posted Captive bred newts.
 
Well, if I'm reading that right, does that mean you can get stuff ordered from China directly? If so, you could PM some members that are in China if they can hook you up with some CB animals, like Axolotls, Triturus species, or Pleurodeles waltl (The Spanish ribbed newt)
 
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