Hi all , if you have this problem as above as I did ( had a couple of casualties but since I did this none ) then I just fabricated a bit of wire mesh over the water inlet ( where the water gets sucked in ) I used a cable tie to hold it in place , and then directly over the top of that , another piece of mesh . It did solve my problem of the newts dying but you do have to clean the mesh(s) regularly because occasionally you get algae and vegetation build up etc.