Young Salamander Questions

[bruiser1]

In my back yard, I have a seasonal pond that is full at the moment but won't be in 3 or 4 months and it's full of long-toed salamander larvae. I have a mass of eggs in a large jar of pond water that are hatching right now, actually, and two larvae roughly two or three weeks old in a larger jar of pond water with a few clean aquarium decorations for hiding. I took the eggs because my dogs like to play in the pond (it's only about 3 feet deep in the middle) and more than once I watched them narrowly miss the glob so I decided that, until they were able to swim away and hide from danger, I would care for them myself and as for the other two, I just wanted to watch them through metamorphosis and release them in a few weeks. Lately though, I've been toying with the idea of keeping 3 or three as adults as pets since I've heard that, in areas they aren't native (Eastern USA), they are not all that uncommonly kept by hobbyists. I've checked it out and the only restrictions on keeping this species is that you can't sell a native species, which I don't intend to do. I am aware of the dietary and spacial requirements. My questions are as follows:
1) approximately how much water would this specific type of salamander need (small bowl? half the terrarium?)
2) what kind of substrate should be used
3) if the water portion should be large, do I need a filter
4) should I use pond water or tap water w/o chlorine and chloramine
5) if I use pond water should I not use a filter, and vice versa
6) any advice people who have done this or had a long-toed salamander
please and thank you

 

[Jennewt]

This article may be helpful:
Caudata Culture Articles - Raising Newts and Salamanders from Eggs

Remember that they will grow significantly, so they'll need a much larger container/setup once they get going. One entire egg mass could contain quite a few of them, so you might want to consider using a kiddy pool outdoors. This would be large enough and would also provide some live food in the form of mosquito larvae, etc. Set it up like a secondary, temporary pond. After the larvae get big, you could bring a couple indoors to morph, if you decide to keep a couple as pets.

 

[Kaysie]

Long-toed salamanders can be kept in the same way as tiger sals; almost all the ambystomatids have similar care.

The only difference is they're small as adults, so need food sized accordingly. Otherwise, they're bold, easy captives.