Firebelly newts potentially odd behavior

[Bethany29]

Hello! I'm relatively new to owning newts and I was wondering if some of my 3 FBNs behavior should be concerning.

I bought my first newt, a female, about 6 months ago and recently added 2 new ones, a male and a female. Since introducing the new ones, the two females have been laying all over each other constantly and I'm not exactly sure what this means.... Are they fighting for dominance or just getting to know each other? Or maybe some weird lesbian newt mating ritual idk...

Another thing is that it seems like there's only ever 2 on the land area at a time, one of them (usually the male since the females are all other each other) is off swimming. Is this an indication that I need more land area for them to dock or just a coincidence?

Thank you!

 

[Chinadog]

I'm afraid it's an indication something's wrong, either with your set up, or with he newts themselves. All of the species sold as fire bellies by petstores are almost completely aquatic in captivity, so spending extended periods on land is bad. The good news is they are all relatively easy to look after as long as their basic needs are met. A picture of your newts and their set up would help us identify the species you have because the requirements of each type of fire belly are different.
There is a sticky thread at the top of the help section about Chinese fire bellies, have a read of that in the mean time, as most, if not all of the info in there is relevant to your newts.

 

[Bethany29]

Here's the setup. I don't know what could be wrong. I don't have a filter but I do a 25% water change weekly and then like 90% with the little sucker thing monthly

They have smooth skin so Japanese, right?

 

[Sir Jagger]

The Japanese have rougher skin. There is a page about telling the differance here Caudata Culture Articles - Firebelly

 

[Chinadog]

It's good that there's no filter, Chinese firebellies (that's what they are) hate water currents of any kind. What you really need are loads and loads of live aquatic plants, so many that you can't see from one side of the lank to the other. These plants are important because they will help keep the water in good shape in the absence of a filter for one thing, but they are vital for getting your newts to go back in the water again.

Please don't take this as attempt to make you feel bad, It's not, it's an attempt to explain the reasons why your newts are behaving the way they are. By the time these kinds of Asian newts end up with their new owners, they will have endured filthy conditions at dealers, wholesalers and petstores for weeks if not months after being captured in the wild in China. Their reaction to all this is to abandon the water and become terrestrial in an attempt to find more favourable conditions. In terrestrial mode they will have much reduced tail fins, which means they are poor swimmers at best and will never willingly enter open water because drowning is a real risk to them. By stuffing the water with live plants you will give them a sort of safety net to prevent drowning and hopefully they will have the confidence to become aquatic again.

After they have been in the water for a few weeks they will have re grown their tail fins, so the stupid amount of plants can be reduced slightly if you like, but there should always be a good amount of live plants in a tank for Chinese fire bellies.
It would be a good idea to purchase test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate from the petstore as anything other than perfect water conditions will also deter them from becoming aquatic again. Cleaning the bottom with the syphon is good and the plants will help enormously, but you may have to do more regular partial water changes to begin with as well.

It's such a shame these newts are treated the way they are by the pet industry because they do make interesting, fun pets that are very easy to look after if they are healthy. Unfortunately this is almost never the case with petstore newts, but by giving them optimal conditions you're giving them the best chance of recovering.

 

[Bethany29]

Okay thank you! I only have a few live plants in there now, but I'll definitely add more