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Spot was basking on a flagstone in his pond but it was too rough and injured the bottom of his shell, so I got a big piece of cork bark as a substitute. After seeing him react to it - and how easily and quickly he climbed up on it - I understand now that this is the kind of basking surface that turtles like Spot were meant to sun on. It's the perfect surface for him and so easy for him to climb on. Here are some photos of him enjoying it.

There's a crape myrtle tree next to the pond that constantly sheds pink flowers in the water.







You can see golden minnows swarming in the water. There are hundreds, I believe, in the pond.





Spot snipped all the pads off the water lily about a month ago but it's trying bravely to make a come back, as you can see.





We put out plates of peanuts and corn on the cob for various critters like squirrels and blue jays.

I'm jealous of Spot's beautiful home!

WOW! Spot's just perfect.

same here

Spot looks so happy basking.How many gals is that??

I love the fountain

It's a 500 gallon pond. About half the water is below ground level to stabilize the water temps, so it's probably bigger than it looks. It's 6 feet in diameter. There's a 500 gph pondmaster pump and a UV sterilizer. We didn't build it ourselves - we paid someone to do it. The fountain plus some mosquito fish keep mosquitoes from breeding in there. It's practically maintenance free.

wow that is a huge amount of water!! Spot is a lucky turtle! He looks very relaxed on that cork bark

When I get a house, I'm going to want a pond like that =D Lucky turtle

You should submit some of those to the photo contest, he looks so cute with all those flowers in the background!

Wow thats a beautiful pond. Spot looks so happy in the first pic

Wont it escape? Has it tried? Its so cute!

He cant escape the water is not high enough
Compare his size to his surroundings in the last picture

Im sure he has tried though

I love corkbark! It's so natural and my turtles love it to. The pond looks really nice. Can't wait to have my own backyard so I can make one. Spot looks very happy and relaxed.

Did you attach the cork bark to something to stabilize it and keep it from floating around? Spot looks extremely content basking on there.

It looks like its resting on something in the 6th pic

I really like the corkbark look. I have it in the stock tank and my RES looks so much better while on it. There's a picture of it next to me in that other topic

Where did you get your's from? I've bought some from 2 different places and had mixed results.