Can fire-bellied toads be left alone for 5 days?

Hi,

We couldn’t write for a while because our typist, April, was too busy.

She wasn’t too busy to take a vacation and visit her grandchildren . . .

Anyway, she left us for 5 days alone!  She put all the live crickets from the cricket keeper into our house and just left.  There were about 6 of those crickets and after we ate them we didn’t have anything to eat.  But, when she got back we were still fat (according to her observation) and we weren’t even that hungry.

So now she thinks she can take that next vacation to Hawaii without us.  She says that will be 10 days.  But, perhaps since we will be living in Kemmerer by then our neighbor can stop by after 5 days and feed us again before April returns.

Another bit of news is that we got our tank cleaned and rearranged again.  Here is our new tank set up.

We have lots of water and places to hide submerged or partially submerged.  We also have long plants in the back to hide in (these are fake plants, but April doesn’t think we know the difference).  And we have rocks to sit on and to hide under.  And, our favorite is the waterfall in the back.  April says it is just the way the filter works, but we like to believe it is our own rainforest waterfall to play in.

We need lots of water in our house because we have fish living with us.  The water dilutes our toxins and keeps the fish from keeling over.  Since the fire-bellied newts also live in here that is four of us giving out toxins in the water.

 It has been about 2 months and the fish are doing fine so we figure there must be enough water in the tank to dilute our toxins.  We have neon tetras, guppies (lots of guppies) and some bottom feeders in the tank.

Those two guppies we started with have been having lots of babies.  Since April set the tank up with great hiding places for us and the newts the baby guppies have been taking advantage of those same hiding places which gives them time to grow up and avoid being eaten by the larger fish.  Pretty soon the larger ones are going to be shipped out to April’s friend’s house to live with his turtles.  We have the idea they might not “live” to long there.  We heard turtles like to eat guppies.  So far, April hasn’t seen us eat any fish, but she heard we might eat guppies also.  Another reason why she thinks she can leave us alone for 10 days since there are plenty of guppies in here to eat if we wish.

We also researched how to keep wax worms alive longer.  The ones April has been buying at Petco are either dead already or die within a few days.  This time she bought ones at Pet Smart but they were already in the store for a week and didn’t look so good.  So, like she always does, April decided to find a way to feed them and keep them alive for as long as possible.  We will have this information on another blog later.

Well, the rest of this blog will mostly be pictures of us.  April made us pose for portraits and she seems to think we are darn cute.  Oh, yeah, there are some of the newts also.

  The grass (or water) is always greenier on the other side.

  Sometimes I hang out this way.

  Sometimes I hang out that way.

  Brownie says I have bedroom eyes.

  Let me out of here!  He does NOT have bedroom eyes.

  But, I can understand why he has such a hard time staying away from me.

  You can make it.

  Stacked newts.

Hope you liked the pics.

Kind Regards,

Brownie and Greenie

  Brownie

  Greenie