Help needed - brand new Japanese firebelly babies

[evut]

Hi everybody,
so I finally found a breeder who had the japanese firebellies and bought 4 juveniles. They arrived today and they're really tiny. Couple of questions - please read on - I will really appreciate help. I attached some photos.

1. Set up
I had a tank set up for aquatic animals but because these are very young (about 5cm lenght incl. tail) they still spend most time on land. I added more land area to the tank (a large seed tray with eco earth and moss) but when I saw how tiny the newts are I decided to put them into a smaller plastic box because I though there might be too much water and we won't be able to keep an eye on them with all the places to hide etc. Maybe I'm just paranoid so please let me know what you think.
The original tank is 90 x 30 cm and has about 18 cm water. The new box is 25 x 35 cm and only has an inch of water. The dish is terracota so the substrate inside (eco earth and moss) is really wet. They have been mostly inside the coconut cave but come out to explore once in a while and even go for a little dip. The breeder said they spend night in water.

2. Feeding
The person I got them from said they've been eating small crickets, lesser waxmoths and woodlice and sent a pack of the waxmoths (smallish white worms). They seem really big for the newts so we tried giving them halves of the worms with tweezers and they took some eventhough they really seemed to hate it when the "juice" from the worm touched them on the mouth or face - they started wiping and washing immediatelly and looked really upset.
So - should we give them the whole worm? I will try to get some small crickets tomorrow. I suppose these should be served in a dish and the newts should come and serve themselves? Any advice on feeding these little guys will be greatly appreciated (frequency, how, when, what...)

I thought I did plenty of research before I got them but it was all about grown up aquatic newts and now I have these miniature babies! I read all I could find here on this forum about raising juveniles so I know it's difficult to get them to become fully aquatic and it will probably still be a couple of months before these do. In the meantime I will be extremely happy if anyone with any experience can help.

Many thanks everyone!

 

[merk199]

Were they aquatic coming from the breeder or were they terrestrial? If terrestrial they could drown in that tank.

 

[evut]

He said he had them on 3/4 land 1/4 water. They are not in the large tank now (the 1st photo) - instead we put them into a smallish plastic container. Water there is very shallow (about 2cm) and there are lots of stones and moss and plants for them to hold on to. They have been exploring it a bit and seemed ok with the water, one of them even stayed submerged for quite a while.

 

[vistajpdf]

When I got my FBN (Chinese), they stayed almost exclusively on land. I didn't have a lot of land for them and apparently my set-up was incorrect (sloping gravel.) They'd be huddled up together (2 of them) inside a little hut. I worried they'd dry out and either gave them a quick dunk in the water or spritzed them daily. I never saw them in the water for months. I had/have no idea as to their age, but they have since reproduced, 11 months after getting them. I did not want to breed them or anything, but their newtpoles are what brought me here.

Anyway, once my adult pair returned to water, I never saw them on land again. My larvae have yet to morph, though I dread the day as I hear about the casualties that happen afterwards...

I would keep the newts where you currently have them with the shallow tank just to decrease the risk of them drowning. I've heard that's the common problem with juveniles.

I'm feeding my larvae white worms, black worms, and have the newly hatched ones on Daphnia (live) and I use frozen baby brine shrimp and another frozen Daphnia-like mixture for all of them. My adults eat frozen and thawed bloodworms and I've given them some of the larger live worms from the bunch. My adults used to eat about 3 times per week. The larvae eat daily or twice per day. I would try to get the newts to take some worms each day as you are doing. Once they return to the water, they can be fed less often.

Good luck,
Dana

 

[Azhael]

I´d say keep them completely terrestrial.
Most Cynops juveniles don´t enter the water until they are almost mature. Some excepcional juvies might become aquatic earlier but it´s mostly an excepcion.

I keep mine on paper kitchen towels and they are doing great. They eat eagerly from the tweezers and i just got them to eat frozen bloodworms on a paper. You can give them earthworms, they love them.

This is a fascinating species, i´m growing fonder of them everyday. Good luck with yours.

 

[Jennewt]

I think the setup will be OK. In my experience, it's not a good thing to switch them back and forth between most-aquatic and mostly-terrestrial setups. Either can work. I would have recommended getting a complete description from the breeder and matching it closely. Based on the breeder's food choices, I suspect they were being kept in a soil-based terrarium with a water dish (thus getting the 75/25 ratio you mentioned).

The critical thing is getting them to eat. If you got them (or even one of them) to hand-feed, that is a good success. Using the tweezers, you can also offer small bits of earthworm (#1 recommendation!) or bloodworms. Unless you can show the relative size of the waxworms together with the newts, it's hard to say if the waxworms are too large or not. It can't hurt to leave a couple of them in there.

 

[Mark]

They look pretty small. At that stage I personally would keep them in a terrestrial set-up with only a small, shallow water dish. I have last years JFBN (6-7cm) which I've never even seen take a dip in the water bowl, so a semi-aquatic tank is overkill and might pose drowning risks.

I feed my juveniles almost exclusively on defrosted bloodworm fed from the end of a toothpick and small earth worms. Occasionally they get a lesser waxworm.

 

[evut]

Hi everyone, many thanks for your advice!

All four newts are spending all their time inside the coconut cave. The land area (and the inside of the coconut) is pretty wet as the moss soaks the water through the terracota dish) so I suppose I don't have to worry about them drying out.
When we remove the coconut they start exploring, even the water area and some stay fully or partially submerged for a while or climb the moss and rocks. They all ate yesterday. The biggest one of them took 4 worms (not at once), one had 3 and the other two just one each. We chopped up a slug today which they didn't like. Today we managed to give them a worm each (the big one had a couple again) but one refused to eat. I hope that's not a big deal if he just skips one day...? Otherwise I tried the frozen bloodworms. One of them had a taste but didn't like it. I'm going to give them a chopped earthworm tomorrow - luckily tonight it's raining here so it should be super easy to find one. Hope they'll go wild like you say!

Thanks again and please let me know if you have any more ideas for me.
Eva

 

[Jennewt]

When we remove the coconut they start exploring, even the water area and some stay fully or partially submerged for a while or climb the moss and rocks.

I would not interpret this behavior as "exploring". The newt is thinking "Yikes, I'm uncovered and I must find a place to hide! I'll even go in the water if I have to!"

It's very good that they all ate well. If they keep this up, they will do well.

I agree that there is some danger of drowning. On one of their explorations, they may not find their way back to the island. This can be reduced by adding a lot of plants (real or fake) to the water area.

 

[evut]

I realise they like to be hidden for a reason They do come out of the coconut by themselves once in a while - I think they feel safer when it's dark and quiet. The biggest one of them always goes for the water when we take away the shelter and stays in, the rest wander around half submerging themselves on the stones and plants. They don't seem scared or desperate.There are pebbles and bits of moss and plants everywhere so I think it's pretty safe. There is always something they can reach and the water is only 2cm deep.
I wonder how can you tell they want to go aquatic? Do they start spending time in water by themselves? I read here that people "make" them??? Just wondering about the whole process, not that we want to do anything now - they are like overgrown ants at the moment
They ate again today which we're extremely happy about!

 

[Azhael]

Beware....2cm for such an small creature is more than enough to drown. That´s why i recomended keeping them terrestrial..to avoid the possibility of drowning. It´s a rather small possibility but it happens.
In such a set-up like yours, you´ll notice if the animals want to be aquatic because they´ll simply spend their time under water, although they will need A LOT more water once they decide to be aquatic.

 

[evut]

Hi Azhael,
I've added more pebbles so there is actually no open area with the full depth, only the gaps between the stones. They do seem to like (or at least not hate getting wet - sometimes they just sit in the water for a long time. Hope this will be fine. We have managed to feed them every day so far - chopped earthworm and the lesser wax worms. Tomorrow we should get some small crickets for them so hope they'll like them too (eventhough we're not looking forward to breaking their legs as we've read we should do... chopping the earthworm was bad enough ...especially because the bits move even an hour later!!!)