Newts, crayfish, guppies..

Question
I want form a circle of life per se.  I want to get a newt that actively hunts fish.  I've been trying to breed guppies causse they're small enough for the newts mouth.  I also want to add in dwarf crayfish, and maybe an african frog or two.  Is this possible?  and what live plants should i get?wouls shrimp be better than crayfish?
i currently have a 6 gallon acrylic tank.

Answer
Dear Biosphere,
While replicating nature is extremely difficult. I will do my best to help.. What an interesting project...

Before you go any further you must insure your 6gal aquarium is fully cycled. This means it has established a beneficial bacterial colony like all healthy aquariums do whom convert ammonia into less toxic compounds. This is vital to insure as even trace amounts of ammonia or nitrite is very harmful to all aquatic life.
In healthy aquariums-test results are as follows-
Ammonia-0 Nitrite-0 nitrate-20 or less.

If you need any further help on cycling. Feel free to let me know.

Now since your aquarium is on the small side, you'll have to be very careful to avoid overstocking your tank. Is this going to be a paludarium--a mixture between about 1 part land to three parts water? Sometimes more, sometimes less. A paludarium is a VERY interesting setup that I highly recommend. In a paludarium you keep both newts or salamanders, as well as a few fish, 1-2 frogs, ghost shrimp, and snails. Before starting a paludarium special planning must be done beforehand with the animals wellbeing coming first and foremost, and also designing the paludarium in a way that it is fairly easy to maintain and clean. In the land area regular house plants can be grown and this creates a feel for a mini jungle stream.

A paludarium does best with a good working filter. But the filter is best off being an internal power filter of some sort. I would recommend this type of filter called "Tetra Reptofilter for frogs, newts, & turtles. I have used this filter and it does a very good filtering job and has the added plus of working in very little amounts of water.
If you are interested, you can find a picture and some info on this filter at "PETCO.COM" Just type in "Reptofilter" in the search box and you'll be there.

Now some paludariums may need a heater. But this is also a risky thing relating to many paludariums have an uncertain amount of water volume that may be too few. You can get by without heaters as long as you keep species who thrive in room temperature water, and as long as your home is not too cold.

Your aquarium is really too small for this setup actually. Your will have to be careful and limit your aquarium to just a few critters. No newt I know of eats or should be feed feeder fish. They do much better and are healthier on a diet of frozen foods such as crickets, chopped earthworms, black worms, brine shrimp, white worms, fruit flies, wax worms, and ghost shrimp, dahnia, mosquito larvae, tubifex and sometimes even small insects.
Most newts will grow to large to be comfortably kept in your size aquarium. They will need a land area and should really be kept in a minimum of 10gallons. Actually a 10-15 gallon would be a much better choice for your setup.

Another bad thing is guppies multiply very fast and produce large broods of babies that oftentimes the older fish won't control the population. Other fish in the aquarium can help control the guppy fry population. But in that small of an aquarium, the guppy population will overpopulate that small of an aquarium before long.

Crawfish too unfortunately may be a poor choice for your aquarium. They really do best in a aquarium designated to them only. Such as a ten gallon. Other mild fish can be kept with them but crawfish are vunerable to predation or pestering by other fish and other fish are vunerable to the crawfishes claws as well.

You would have much more leeway and possibilities if your aquarium was updated to even a 10gal paludarium and larger is even better.

For your small aquarium, if you want to have a mini ecosystem...I would add about 4-5 White clouds as the fish, 3-4 ghost shrimp, 1-2 mystery snails, and an african dwarf frog for the non-fish creatures. Live plants and twice weekly water changes as well as good filtration will greatly help in keeping the water as clean as possible.

I hope this helps,
Best wishes,
Karen~