Habitat - Indoor :: My First Set Up

[paul939]

Hello! I became a RES owner unexpectedly a few weeks ago. Came home from the bars early one Sunday morning around 5 am after a crappy day and night and found a tiny hatchling turtle sleeping in a puddle by my front door. I couldn't just leave him...I live on a canal in South Florida not 5 miles from the Everglades. Lots of predators around that he wouldn't last a minute out here (big fish in the canal, birds, 5 ft iguanas, gators, etc. etc). Fell in love right away. A few hundred dollars later, I had a brand new full set up for my guy. A few days later on St. Pattys Day, I was basking in my pool after a few cocktails and one of my dogs came over and dropped another baby hatchling next to me. So now I have had two for a couple of weeks now and wanted to post my set up and see if there were any comments/suggestions. I have been lurking this site the whole time and can't overstate how helpful it has been. Also, my girlfriend is getting sick of hearing me talk to her about my turtles so I need some people to relate with, lol.

My Set Up includes:
A 20L generic petsmart tank
Marineland BIO WHEEL Penguin 350 for a 75g tank
ZooMed Turtle Dock
ZooMed 50w Heat Lamp
ExoTerra Reptile UVB 100
Fluval M150 Heater
Live Plants:
-Two long grass-like plants
-Two amazon swords
-Two more that I have no idea what they are
-Moss ball (aka turtle soccer ball)
Two red phantom tetras
x amount of feeder guppies
3 apple snails

First night:


His first "tank". Shell not looking very nice and he seemed to not be doing too well.


Tank now:




These are the two plants I can't remember:


Basking Area: (plexiglass cover is to stop water splashing out of the tank)


Tetras:


Happy brothers/sisters/both?




Much happier now! Looks like he's smiling


Snail!


Started hand-feeding (kind of, pellets are too tiny for me to actually hold lol)
http://vid172.photobucket.com/albums/w14/pmharding939/turtle%20eating_zps5dm3avtd.mp4

Thanks guys!

[Kansasslider]

Looks nice. I know how easy it is to fall in love with your turtles and so do my friends! They are probably sick of hearing about them as well but they are just polite and listen to me. Keep in mind you will need a larger tank as they can grow pretty quickly. I would recommend removing the gravel. Your turtles might eat it and it traps a ton of debris. If you want a substrate consider pool filter sand or play sand.

[ljapa]

I'll sedond everything kansasslider said. I started out with the same sized tank, a similar turtle dock, similar turtel gravel and a much worse filter.

Right now, that gravel is too big to be swallowed, but my RES picked a it, and it does make it impossible to get all the poop. I eventually moved to pool filter sand.

I also eventually got a bigger filter, similar to yours, then later fully filled the tank and built an ATBA before moving to a 55 gallon I got at the dollar a gallon sale.

This summer will likely see the move to a permanent tank.

[paul939]

One of my co-workers has a 90 gallon they aren't using that I'll probably scoop up from her.

I'll be going to sand here in a little bit. They've gone through so many changes over the last few weeks (tank and just in general) so I want them to settle in and get comfortable before I go and change it up again.

One of them is very outgoing and social and I catch him basking a lot (before he darts for the water) and the other spends most of his time in the corner amongst the leaves. That one used to be the social one and the previously mentioned used to be the anti-social one. Odd how they've completely swapped personalities. I'll give it some more time before I start worrying about him.

[steve]

Because of their different personalities, you'll want to make sure each are getting their fair share of food. Welcome to the site!