Hey Rubes, welcome!
If you haven´t bought the newt yet, i´d strongly advice you to wait, there are many things you have to change and learn first.
You can access the articles through the links in my signature. They contain all the information you need from how to cycle a tank to water conditions, feeding, decorations and of course the species caresheet. Get cracking, there´s a lot xD There are also volumes and volumes written about this species around the forums.
The basics would be that it´s a species that behaves 100% aquatic in captivity as long as the conditions are right. This means that you can make use of the whole volume of the tank. The larger the volume of water, the more stable its parametres will be (temperature, pH, ammonia, etc...) and the easier it will be to maintain. For land you can use a piece of floating cork bark.
I strongly recommend that you use live plants and huge amounts of them too. Really....LOTS. You can read around the forums about the benefits of heavily planted tanks.
For H.orientalis i would recommend not using a filter. They prefer completely still water with loads of vegetation, plus filters produce heat and that doesn´t help.
One final piece of advice. In case you haven´t acquired the newt yet, i´d advice you to reconsider. All the animals of this species available from shops are wild-caught from China. The process is very traumatic and many die before even reaching the shops. The rest have been exposed to all sorts of patogens and inadequate conditions. Typically, this doesn´t get any better while they are the shop. Those that survive long enough to be bought are very stressed with supressed inmune systems, if not already ill. Plenty of problems may result from this, the most common of which are flesh-eating infections which rarely end well.
If you want to get into the hobby, there are better options. I understand from what other users have commented that there is not much offer in Canada, but there have to be some breeders around, or you might be able to get them shipped from the states (don´t know how that works, just saying). There are many species which are regularly bred in captivity and which make far better choices.
If finding captive-bred animals from an apropriate species is not possible to you and the pet-shop H.orientalis are your only choice, take it slowly. Make absolutely sure everything is ready way before hand. The tank cycled, food cultures going, if necessary, etc. The best chance the poor newts have to recover is if the conditions you prepare for them are optimal (which is not currently the case). Also, make sure to choose animals that have a good weight, no sores or any marks on the skin and are acting lively.
Once again, i would like to stress that you try to find breeders because it´s the best option for you as a costumer and obviously for the animals.
