How to Make a *TURTLE POND HABITAT*

Hello, what's up everyone? Ed, the

pond

teacher. I'm coming from Rockville and I'll give you a little update. Greg and I were at a client's house. He has painted

turtle

s in Midland that lay eggs on his property. since then she has watched them over the years she puts them in these cages going over the nest we went out there we dug up some of these nests just as the

turtle

s were hatching we brought some of these babies back and I'm going to show you a little of what we're going to create for them throughout the day today, okay, you're in for a treat with this here we are, we're in our retail store here are the baby turtles, they're doing fantastic Right now you can see they're They are becoming very active, they are growing rapidly each day we feed them a high protein diet.

Right now, because this is the time when they need to gain mass, we are going to create a larger tank for them. these guys and that's going to happen again in this area, this is going to become the home for these turtles for the next six months or so until spring and then we'll release them into the wild, we've got this big tank, we've got a really cool stump. I have our filtration system, so this one has the pressure filter, it also has a pump and it has tubes. I have some river rocks. I also have some cool pebbles and stuff to decorate things with and I have some water blocks.

I have some too. of these drainage cells and some filter pads and things like that. I'm going to install this tank in this area. Get a new light. They will give them better water quality and the space they need because of who we are as people. They are always contacting us and bringing in Turtles which becomes almost like a small turtle rescue facility and that's because we have the facility port and we talk a lot about the time. Drag always talks about his love for turtles and that's how we get into the business, people hear this and bring us their turtles that are getting too big, so these are some of the challenges we have.

What I like about what we are doing with this new tank is that we will release it again. In the wild, these turtles that we have been given have been raised in captivity for their entire lives, they probably wouldn't spend much time in the wild, so what we want to do is put these new turtles in this tank so they can continue to grow. Theirs

make

them strong enough, give them a little head start and then they will be released into the wild and in the spring, so I built my aquatic blocks. I love the elevation to which this type of coincidence took them. up with the existing turtle tank there my filter box here we have our pipe we have our pump and we have our filter now this filter is a little excessive Citizen Ultra Pond mm filter technically designed for a 2000 gallon

pond

but we want to have low maintenance, we want making sure the water is pristine for the baby turtles, they're used to high water quality and this will give us that, so I opened up the pressure filter and inside there are bags of these bioballs, so what they basically do is create a surface area for beneficial bacteria and enzymes to colonize.

If you look at these things, the way they're designed is they just have a lot of these little fins and things on there, every square millimeter is going to be covered with bacteria, enzymes, biofilms and things like that that will actually detoxify the water, so It is an important component. The other thing we want to do is add water here, which will allow us to place the top piece back. at the top and that's because we have to allow water to flow through this whole system and then out, so here's the top set, we have water flowing through this guy, here the water comes out and hits This diffuser plate that spreads the water over the The water will then pass through the biomedium and then come back into contact with the UV sterilization unit.

Now I don't like to use them all the time, but in this application that

make

s sense because we are trying to create a good environment. This is an Aqua Force pump. The good thing about this is that it is designed for pond use. You can see how he has this cage around everything. This will protect the actual pump from getting dirt inside, thus all the water coming out. through in and around this will be taken into the volute cavity and then it will be discharged here this will connect to our plumbing which will go to our pressure filter which will be located on the one on the other side so I installed the discharge piece and , as you can see here, it fits very well, there's no way for an animal to get in and around that, so I feel very comfortable with it, so now my next step is going to be to adapt this accessory to our little swinging elbow here so that The discharge can come out at any different angle, so what I like about this is that it will allow me to go up and over the edge of the tub over here, so I like The position of the trunnion problem is this pump here, so I What I'm going to do is place my saw right here.

I'm going to cut some of these roots and things off the back just to get them into this back corner. positioned I have my main inch and 1/2 line coming out you have an input you have an output and then this is a waste so you can have a clean cycle etc so I'll plug this in later but that will be for Al wash the filter again, what I'm going to do is take this flush and kind of plastic up here and the reason I want to do that is the water is going to be absorbed underneath all of these things and then this flush kind of shot here, what I want to try to do is create a spinning action by having a little bit of flow that allows them to swim against the current, so this is really good for them because it strengthens those muscles. muscle memory, they could gain greater strength by swimming against a current rather than just in a body of stagnant water, so I discharged my pipes creating that whirlpool area, this will be a deeper zone, that's why they are what we call flow cells to sewer system.

The panels allow water to move in all directions through them. We use them in many different applications. They have a really strong load capacity, but here what I'm trying to do is simply create an area where water can still flow. to our bombs, but what I'm going to do besides that is cover it. I have some filter pads in there and cut the filter pads to fit inside all of this as the water is discharged. Here, all that water has to go through the filter media before it goes back to the pump, so there's going to be this secondary biological filtration force, as well as mechanical, that's going to pull out a lot of fine sediment and things like that, and now what?

What I'm doing is going in, I'm literally trying to fill every little crack and crevice because I don't want those little turtles to get stuck inside there, so my next step is going to be going in with my waterfall. foam is an expandable polyurethane foam to which carbon black has been added. It's also a minimal expansion foam that doesn't spill everywhere if you've ever used it like something cool or something, it's a lot easier to work with. We're going to try to fill some of these other little spaces that are hard to fill with the filter pad and I just want to block all those little cavities and entrances that turtles could get in, so if you're really moving forward on this project we're trying to replicate the actual area where the turtles came from Bob crosses the property it has logs it has stumps it has aquatic vegetation it has an island in the middle it has deep areas it has these big long shallow beach banks The areas that appear and all that is the

habitat

perfect for these turtles, which is why they breed so easily there and that's exactly what we're trying to do here, so the stump is obviously a focal point, but it's also going to provide little basking areas to explore for climb and look for natural food sources and we're going to mount a light on top of this, it's going to hang and create kind of an access point here on top of this. rock I chose a dark rock, this is a sedimentary stone, so it will absorb moisture so water will absorb this natural stone, all that moss and all the lichens and things like that will continue to grow, but what that will also do is it will provide an environment nice, warm but humid.

As you can see, this is also located on a slope, so there will be different levels of water and dryness on top of that, which is exactly what happens in natural systems. Remember that was our whole goal with this, but we didn't want to capture turtles just to capture turtles, we want to help repopulate the area because there is a big problem out there, the problem is declining

habitat

s, water quality problems, stormwater runoff, there are all kinds of predation and some Obviously, some of these are natural factors, but others are not, others are man-made, so what we want to do is give them a little help and we want to try to Give them a head start so they can help repopulate the area. natural populations these back areas or my areas of concern, so I called all of this to create a barrier, the turtles will not be able to enter the area where the pump is located, this section will be our open water area.

I have some aquatic vegetation. I'll probably reuse that stump too. I mean, these things are super, super versatile, so I've been cutting super heavy pieces, but I love the way it looks, so what can we do? The thing is that we can cut it to manipulate it and place it in its place behind this other trunk. Now I have a big joint here. I don't just want to use foam there. I had a couple of these pieces cut off of our stump right here, so I'm just going to screw those things into place and then I'm going to get into the little joints and foam the rest of that deep open water area.

You could see that this is exactly what you will find. nature, it's not just one big, deep cavity, we're going to have multiple areas. I'm starting to finish the foam gravel now it's dry. You will begin to place different layers of gravel. I don't want to wear too many big things. I'm just going to try to use some of that larger gravel where some of these larger elevation changes are just because they'll hold that position a little bit better, so I'll do that next to get the Riverstone in place. Now the next step will be to wash everything, so I brought other larger pieces of stone.

The two-inch river rock wasn't holding up to some of those elevation changes, so a couple of these thinner, flatter pieces are really doing the job. I too break the monotony of all this river rock on the bottom, many different areas for different depths of water, so the next step is to wash it, start the pumps and then start adding some aquatic vegetation and finally To the turtles, I want to make sure there is a good flow through the entire system. It's bringing the water back across this small beach area to our pumps. Same thing on our back on this side, so I think we're going to have good overall circulation. good water quality overall, you can see the pump doesn't have to be completely submerged and that's because the pump inlet is probably about two inches below this ridge, on this side the pressure filter seems to hold up eventually and here we have our our UV setting could have it on twelve hours right now, this is our backwash, so we could take it to drain if we need to grab some plants at the end of the season, hit some irises, they had a damn dr.

Atala banana got some pothos out of some of the other tanks and I'm going to start placing them strategically in and around the area, making sure to leave enough room for the turtles to roam, but I also want to create some small grazing areas for him success everything is done everything is operational I have the light mounted on the rock the pump is working I have some moss here I have pothos they have irises I think we have a nice little habitat lots of open space we have warm areas deep water areas On that side there are plenty of spaces for them to climb and crawl.

We have protection in and around our pump. Multiple barriers so they can't enter. The following steps will be released. I have to involve Greg in this and that's the whole reason why the aquascape started in the first place. Greg is an environmental enthusiast who grew up with small baby turtles, which led him to the pond hobby. I mean, look around here, we have turtle habitats everywhere and this last one for these little guys. It's perfect for us and the beauty of it all is that it can be created at home. I mean using some simple technologies to create the right little forms of atmosphere.

We don't want to hold these guys long term like these others that have been bred in captivity, we want to release them back into the wild to helprepopulate some of the native populations, so this is an important component. I am very excited. I just got back from out of town. Bob is kind of a hero to me because when I was a kid I went to his Noah's Ark ketchup pet store I went to one of them in the mall but I've been raising turtles in my yard forever the turtles come in they lay eggs but they never really I've kept them in In winter I was inspired by Bob to do that, so I haven't seen the tank he had created for my whole little zoo here, but I'm going to see it for the first time, are they the cutest things ever or what? ? all of these are Bob's some of these are from my house okay let's bring them back oh yeah of course that will create a perfect space.

They will love this sunny rock. Okay, let's put these guys here. Oh, that's the cutest thing. What a perfect little habitat. It never gets old. There's always something. to do here, you know, and it's not just that I can come here, but that all the children, all the people who can learn about the Midland paper turtles, when they turn eight months old next spring, we will release them , take these guys. to the forest reserves and everything else maybe you know what maybe we get a school to take care of us because I think it would be great to educate future generations because children need to spend more time in nature and less time with electronics.