Water Dog/salamander Habitat

[Brandi.]

We have 2 water dogs. One is almost fully changed into a salamander, but the other has a few weeks yet to go. (He's just begun to get his spots/stripes). We've watched a lot of videos on line, and have decided to go with a plastic tub for this one, until the other one has changed and we can keep them both in the 20 gal. tank. My question is: Our one salamander needs to be moved out of the tank very soon. His gills are almost gone. Our pet store recently went out of business (suddenly) and we were not able to get supplies or anything, thinking we'd have a pet shop just down the street when we needed it... I am going to be ordering coconut fibers from PetCo tomorrow, but it won't be delivered until next week or so. Wal-Mart has nothing... Would sand, a few inches of water (cuz I'm not sure if he's ready to be completely out of water yet, but I don't want him to drown), and a basking rock be an okay environment for him until we can get the fibers in??

 

[blinky000]

I use sand for my axolotls. Should be fine