Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone...

I have many aquariums, reptiles, and other animals...but among my favorites are the newts & salamanders. At the moment, I only have two species who seem to be doing well...they are completely aquatic, so hence cooler than room temp.

I'd like to expand my collection....but I worry about their temperature.

The room is not cool (76 degrees ), as it houses 20 aquariums, and there is no place indoors or out that is cool enough either. I don't want to air condition the whole room because of other tropical herps in the room.

Is there any solution to allow me the freedom to keep newts & salamanders?

well actually if they are aquatic they arent cooler than room temp. water is a sort of 'heat sink' and will change temp less frequently than air beacuse of its unique properties (its a hydrogen bonding sort of thing-you dont want me to go on about it)so your water is more stable to temp change than room temp BUT since they are in a tank they are at average room temp PLUS anything moving the water and lighting the system is actually making the water warmer.

you will need to tell us what set up you have, what breed of newts and if your temp of 76 is the top or the average. there are very few newts that can handle those temps for sustained periods of time with out stressing from it and succoming easily to diseases. it is worth note that 90F can cause some salamanders to go comatose-which i suspect is a result of denaturing('cooking') their proteins-so you can see that if it even slips into 80 sometimes that can be disasterous in the long run. your best bet is to do what i did-get an airconditioner and give them a separate room (or a basement if you have one-but mine even got up into 75F in the summer).

Well right now I have two setups:

A paddletail newt in a fully aquatic setup...no lights, no filter.

And 2 Jap. Firebellies...with hornwort & no filter, but a 20 W fluorecent light.

Each week they get their substrate cleaned ( gravel vacuum ) and a cool water change.

The room averages 76, but on the bottom of the floor ( which is where they are ) it's a bit cooler. The FB's are 72, the paddletail 74....

Both eat just fine and a fairly active. I've had them under these conditions for about 2 years....

Now, I'd like to expand. I haven't decided on what yet...but I'm thinking of species such as the spotted salamander, tigers, fire, marbled, etc.

Maybe I could build an acrylic "closet" and air condition that....keeping them all in their own terrariums.

-Zeb

I bought a two sided peltier unit with a thermostat I installed
on it just yesterday. That peltier has a cool side and a warm side
with fans blowing through heated and cooled fins. The cool side is
the one you stick into the terrarium, the warm side on the outside.
I insulated the sides, bottom, and back of the tank with 1/2 inch
insulation foam which I imagine you can get at a hardware store,
plus placing plexi over most of the top can keep it from warming back up too fast, the fans should circulate the air enough so that
you get air flowing into the tank. The cooling unit plus the
thermostat ran me about 300.00 altogether. You can look the peltier up on http://www.supercool.se/index.html, (it's an air to air unit) but the thermostat is
something you'd have to look for at a refrigeration supply house.
It has a remote bulb for temp from inside the tank relaying to the
thermostat, and the thermostat just switches the unit on or off.
One thing to note. The salamanders you mentioned are land dwellers, and need to live on land preferrably in a vivarium.
They do not live underwater like newts. If you want to know more, see
http://www.cnah.org/
http://www.livingunderworld.org/netscape.htm
http://www.worldofpetsni.com/salamand.htm
http://www.caudata.org/cc/
for care on the salamanders
and
http://www.wildsky.net/vivarium/evivariu.htm
or
http://www.fantasticfrogs.com/
for some cool vivarium ideahs.
The set up I have is new though, so I'll keep you informed if you want. So far, the temp is staying between 65-68 degrees. In my ambient 72-77 room.
Another thing about the salamanders you mentioned, they tend
to hide and need a lot of hiding spaces in order to keep from
stressing the animal, therefore they probably won't be as entertaining as the newts are. The best salamander, most visible are the bright yellow tigers and fire. plus you may be able to find them through a bait house or captive breeders. The only hassle is cleaning the terrarium. But I think you can keep them
in temps up to 76 degrees, eliminating the need to cool.
Make sure if you get tigers to get one with the big bright yellow blotches. These are from the south, all the way to texas, and
therfore are more likely adapted to higher temp weather and
probably won't dissapoint you with dying.
I was also reading from one sight that the spotteds are of special concern and extinct in some areas of New York State. I didn't know this until after I ordered mine and now I have the guilt to deal with, no fun. So far, I have never heard of captive
breed spotteds or marbelled sals. They just need to much space
to breed them (we're talking acres) plus big ponds.