Newts : Alpine/Fire Belly

[teresatheory]

Hello.
A while ago I became really interested in keeping some Fire bellies so I did all the research and set up a really nice tank.
I bought two little newts and one of them was missing an arm, but seemed to be getting around just fine. However in 2 days he'd died, it looked like his skin had split or eaten away by some kind of virus.

I know that newts can have a bite of each other, and to stop this happening I made sure they each had enough room and let them eat whenever they wanted.

I put it down to an infection maybe, so cleaned the tank thoroughly and started again.
The same thing happened again, this time there were no missing toes and the newts appeared healthy and happy, can anyone help me out?

Before I started everything, I made sure the water had been treated to make it safe, I installed a slimline filter to keep the water clean, provided the right ratio of land + water and got a selection of their favourite foods.
I worked really hard in getting it perfect, anybody have any ideas what could have gone wrong? I've spoken to a few people who sell them and they think I have got it all right.
I don't want to continue until I know I am providing them with the ideal set up.


I'm looking at getting either fire bellies or alpine newts in the future, anyone have any thoughts?
thank you very much!
-Teresa

[matthew potatos]

You could be confusing the fire belly newt with the japanese fire bellied newt. i know that they sound the same but they actually have very different needs and i have seen a lot especially in pet stores like petsmart that people often confuse the two newts and mark it as the other i would search both types of newts and try to find pics so you can identify yours.