Turtle Tank Toppers

today I'm going to set up a

turtle

tank

for two radar sliders that were just delivered to me so let's get started so come with me it's super cute yes that's right I've been delivered two red ear sliders and they're Babies Well, they're not babies, they're about four inches each, so I need to put them in an indoor container while the ponds prepare and it's still too cold to take my

turtle

s out, so I started by covering the wall. I just covered the wall with a black shower curtain that way I can put the shelf and

tank

in front of it today.

I'm going to set up a 40 gallon brooder as a temporary home for these two turtles now, if you have a The reddest slider you should imagine they'll be the size of a dinner plate, so let's say it's about 8 inches and 10 inches, so you will need a hundred gallon aquarium 100 gallons of water for that smarter slider to swim around and explore if it was a four inch turtle let's say it was like a Reeves turtle each turtle will not grow larger than four inches usually a 40 breeder gallons, this would be a perfect home for the Reeve tortoise, so depending on the tortoise you have, you can look at it and rate it not by the size of your tortoise now, but by the size of your adult tortoise and this is how you gauge the size of the aquarium you will get if you are going to have an eight inch turtle, then you are going to want at least a 75 to 90 gallon aquarium and not half full of water.

You're going to want to fill it with water, so I'm going to show you how to make a basking area or different ideas that you can use for a basking area when you want to use it when you want to use more of your tank. I am using this 40 gallon breeder for my two new turtles and they will probably be here for maybe a month, six weeks until the weather improves a little. so I'm excited, as you can see now, this is on one of these little metal shelves, you know, these metal shelves with wire shelves that are held together with two plastic clips that snap together.

I'm going to say I am because first I was going to say that I recommend, I don't recommend that you put an aquarium with water in those tanks. Those tanks aren't made to hold a lot of weight, so what I did was I put four cinder blocks underneath and that's actually what it holds. On this bottom shelf there are the plastic clips that hold it in place the wheels are actually off the floor and then I put styrofoam in to even out the small spots and I'm using this 40 gallon brooder currently I'm taking some of the Water because I'm going to start adding the substrate.

Now remember that whatever volume you put in, that water will increase, so don't fill it to the top and then put in the substrate. As far as substrate goes, my favorite is gravel. I love putting gravel on top of the soil and having a planted aquarium, which is one of my favorite styles, but with turtles you want to stay away from gravel, especially gravel and aquarium gravel, it's small enough to grab. worm are either grabbing their food or thinking it is food, they could get stuck and that could be a serious problem for your turtle. Sand is fine, so I'll use sand and some larger rocks. some larger rocks I have gathered around the garden around the house around other tanks all have been washed and ready to use all the different rocks, shapes, places, nooks and crannies will give them tons of places to entertain because the substrate It will not only act as a substrate but will also begin your adventure in stimulating commitment.

I want to keep them entertained. It is very easy for turtles to get bored. I'm going to start with rocks, so I guess I'll start. with the bigger rocks and moving them now last year I used a light diffuser, a plastic light diffuser, and I put the rocks on top so the rock wouldn't sit properly on the glass with the turtle tank and these turtles, to To be honest, they poop a lot. I poop a lot, it was very hard for me to clean up so I'll make sure the rock is on the glass before I put the sand in so if they dig it won't get on the grass and most turtles like that. about 75 they don't like too hot and they don't like too cold anyway on the cooler side so since this room is about 65 degrees I will have to raise 40 gallons of water by 10 degrees so I need a heater that will raise this mass of water 10 degrees.

I have a 100 watt heater which I think will be fine. I'm going to put it. They make plastic casings for heaters, so if a turtle hits it, it won't break. I think I'm going to buy one for this. I don't have one yet, but I think I'm going to buy one for this right now. It's stuck to the side, okay, so now I have a heater in the tank and the water is refilling. I probably could have washed the sand a little better, but hey, I didn't. The next thing is we have the substrate, we have the heater, we have the water in there, I added the water, I have to add water conditioner, so whatever happens. your water conditioner should make sure to remove those chlorines and chloramines.

If you're using tap water, it's meant to keep people safe, not turtles and fish, so the next thing I'm going to add is the filter, there are several filters. you can use them, they have turtle filters, they have filters built into the rocks, but this would be totally submerged, so I didn't want to use it. I say this filter works well, I have it in some of my other tanks, but in this tank I am going to try the shark, let me show you about this filter, so this filter is easy to take apart for cleaning, it is actually held by a strong magnet inside each of these are sponges, mechanical filtration, biological filtration and the magnetic one just sits like it's pretty strong magnetic with some suction cups on the back, so it's going to suck the water up from down here, it goes all the way through. this filtration and it has a waterfall on the top and you can regulate how hard and how slow you want it, so I'm I'm going to put this right here next to the heater because if this heater is heating water, I'm going to want it to be at side of the filter to pick it up and shoot it now.

This shark filter. I love this shark filter. I understand. I got this from kg tropicals keepfishkeeping.com. I'll leave a link below. I have my substrate there. I have some decorations. Now I'm going to place the ornament. I bought it at petsmart and I liked it because I have a couple of turtle ornaments but they are all for 12 inch wide tanks so they are good for 55 gallons and 20 long but I knew I wanted to use this space with a breeder of 40 gallons or maybe if I had to bring them back. inside put them in my 90 gallon aquarium which is 18 inches deep so I bought this tape on this top I really like it let's take a look so it will have this cage on top to make it easy for me reach the turtle if I need it while they are sunbathing, it has a half cover where you can run the wires which is what I'm going to run the heater and filter through, I'm actually sitting on top of a rock so I'm not sitting. the sand so that the other part of the top, in addition to this little piece that allows you to pass electrical elements, you can put the ramp in place like this, it is a perfect fit, you can use.

I like these top ones because you can use all the swimming space and this fits right on the top, so now we still need lights, two types of lights, we need our sunbathing light and we need our UV light. Some reptiles need 10.0 or 12 percent like the bearded dragon, but I'm using 5.0 for turtles. and this is a long t5 tube for the uvb and I'm using it because I wanted to capture most of the heating area with the uvb so it's going to come back here so now I have three cables and then my heating light which I like.

To keep the UVB closer to the edge of the ramp because a lot of times the turtle hangs right on the edge of the lamp or just gets to the top of the ramp and that's where it goes to bask. I added some guppies because there are plenty of places for these guys. to hide now we have to wait for the water to clear that shark should clear the water pretty quickly and I'll do some cable management while I connect the heater and filter to this pole and ran it up so all the cables go to this , so I have the heater, the filter, the UVB and the heater, all four things at my fingertips.

I could turn them on and off if I need to, but now I'm going to add the turtles. This is my eastern painted turtle. but wait, I was going to put my red air sliders on this tank. What happened? Well, two different things. One of them had the audio cut out, so we'll look like a B-rated movie. Okay, but these are my two red ear sliders that I just adopted. Aren't they beautiful? They were delivered to me through my children's store in any of the charts. Let's see if I can get them to light here. Beautiful.

They are in good condition. They just acquired them not long ago and weren't interested now. These two red air sliders we are in a 10 gallon aquarium, so this 40 gallon breeder that I'm going to put them in is a big improvement, but I definitely don't want to put these two red ear sliders with the painted turtles, so I'm going to use a different turtle ornament on this 40 gallon one next to me. Now a 40 gallon is 18 inches wide and the turtle topper is 12 inches so I'm going to put up some brackets, some brackets, I'm just using the brackets that came with the shelf to hold up the turtle lid and then I'm going to put a double wall polycarbonate lid so they can't get out because keep in mind, whoops, so keep in mind when the water is filled to the top.

It's very easy for the turtle to just get out of the tank so you have to have a lid and it's very difficult to have a lid when you use a turtle ornament so I'm going to have to make a lid that has a clay gravel on it so I'm not worried about them eating it, they're not really pebbles, but when they start digging it's going to get muddy, but it's okay, the redder sliders, so until I can make a proper lid I'm just going to Little by little, some of these double wall polycarbonate sheets, I'll put them together and then I'll put a small weight or something on top of it and don't run away, just turn off the timer, that was me, but these two red women. the ear sliders still need a name, they have the uvb and uva bulb up there in their sun sockets.

You might as well put a nice thin piece of slate on this one, this 40 gallon breeder has some white cloud mountain minnows in it and it also has a couple of fathead minnows in it, um, the white cloud mountain minnows They're too fast and I don't think these redder sliders will ever catch them, but this should be fun, let's get back to the painted turtles, this is my eastern painted turtle, let me. Focus on her, she's beautiful, she's a year and a half old and we'll see if she likes this up here. Now I'm going to add my western painting.

Beautiful female. Now put it here and I'll see how long it takes. put the heater up here put the uvb in the back the reasons I like these turtle ornaments is because it allows me to use the entire tank for water and swimming space. I like it a lot better, but if you don't have a turtle ornament you can get out of the water. partially filled this way and then built a basking area above the water but still under the rim of the tank but I wanted to show off and display this ornament now I tried to have it on my 40 gallon rack I built where the 40 gallon tanks They fit, which I got if they fit like a glove, it's a perfect fit.

I needed an extra 2 8's for the sides of this lid and it didn't fit. I also tried installing it upstairs in my reptile den below. here and the top shelf was maybe an inch lower than I needed for this ornament to fit so I checked and tried installing it here with no success so I was really dying to install this in a 40 gallon brooder that had enough room so this will fit and then I could even make a little rock garden up here, maybe some slate, some flat rock, I think it would be nice here, so I put this piece out in the backyard, this is perfect, I cleaned it up .

I think this will be great and the best part is that when the light hits the rock, the rock will heat up and give them a little warmth that will last longer than when the light goes off, so that's nice, although he doesn't seem to do it . Note that the screen will perhaps add a full garden and sunbathing area, but that will come in time. I really like how this tank turned out, but it looks like it's kind of a unit, all the same color. I would love to add a touch of colors. maybe some plastic party plants, something they can swim through, so I'm really happy with how this tank turned out for these little painted turtles, even though they aren't the red air sliders, I like the tank they there are the redder sliders right next to it.

These little oneswith the new turtle ornament, so thank you all, thank you for coming and seeing my new turtle ornament and setting up my two 40 gallon players, one for my red air sliders and one for my painted turtle ladies, up the next. Hello everyone. I'm susie q so come with me he said I'm susie cue