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Posted by nimbus2 on July 30, 2001 at 11:47:37:
In Reply to: Gravel givin me feeding problems posted by NewtLoverVT on July 29, 2001 at 19:57:26:
Gravel need not be a problem. As bobble mentions, it's very useful for stabilizing the health of the tank, both for the newts and for plants. It also is useful for aesthetic purposes. Cleaning need not be a problem either, all it takes is 5 minutes of vaccuuming the gravel with a siphon about once a month. If you find that you have to do it more often, then you're overfeeding or have too many newts in the tank. What's difficult about that? And you get the benefit of helpful bacteria in the gravel adding to the overall health of the tank, not to mention a NICE-looking tank.
The problem of blackworms slipping through gravel is significant...if that's all you feed your newt. Blackworms are a fine food for tiny newt larvae, but you should consider moving on to other foods for adult newts. I feed nightcrawlers, earthworms, beefheart, shrimp, etc. and never have worms slipping into the gravel.
As for newts dying from eating gravel, it's certainly possible in theory, but I don't take it seriously. Where's the proof? It's too convenient to blame a sudden death on gravel, especially when you're not a pathologist or didn't even autopsy your newt to make sure your assumption was correct...it's a total guess. Newts swallow random detritus and debris all the time in the wild, they've evolved to cope with their particular method of eating prey. I've kept many newts (both tiny and very large species) on gravel for some 15 years now with not even one death from ingested gravel. They always pass the gravel or spit it back out just fine.
The only reason they mistakenly eat the gravel in the first place is due to needlessly tiny food (like blackworms) provided for large newts. Give them larger prey, and this wont be a problem...except perhaps a small problem to the owner's feeding convenience. Tiny blackworms slithering among the crevices of gravel is asking for ingested gravel from a newt over 2 inches in length. Also, buy adequate sized gravel for the size of the newt. I keep my smallest newts on sandblasting gravel like Newt-Ignorant. They never eat it, and it's fine enough so that earthworms cannot burrow into it with ease before being eaten. For larger newts like Tarichas, Paramesotritons, Pleurodeles, etc. keep them on larger gravel and give them larger prey.
So all in all, it seems to me that the anti-gravel opinion is largely rooted in a wish for feeding to consist of just dumping some blackworms/frozen bloodworms into a tank and not having to do 5 minutes a month of tank maintenance...or just a poor choice of gravel size to begin with ;)
