New Noto Owner Needs Help!

[Attenborough]

So about 3 weeks ago i started a a tank with three notos, I've kept fish but I'm new to herping. For a week or two everything was fine, they spent most of their time swimming around and hiding in the cracks in the rocks, but for the past week or so they have hauled out and spend almost all of their time our of the water. This worries me. I've siphoned the gravel and done 50% water changes to keep the ammonia levels down but they still will only stay in for a little bit of time then just lay on the rock all day to the point of drying out and getting wrinkles. What am I doing wrong? I have a piece of driftwood I boiled and cured that started to grow some algae/black hair stuff that I cleaned but didn't know if that was a problem. Also I head conflicting things, do newts like to live in groups or solitary? There is one that the other two like to crawl on, I didn't know if this was a dominance thing or a sex thing or what. I just wanna make sure my little guys are happy so any suggestions would be great! Thanks

 

[slowfoot]

Newts are solitary creatures, but having more than one in a tank is usually not a problem for Notos.

My suggestions would be to get rid of the filter (Notos prefer still water), and add live plants to help with the water quality. The plants will also give the newts more security in the water. I would also do an actual test for ammonia rather than just changing the water and hoping things improve.

 

[Scorpion]

I'd just like to say that that's a nice-looking setup you have there.

 

[lilsoul]

live plants would probably help