Fast forward and he’s still in the 40 gal breeder with Fluval70 (foam, active carbon, bio). His shell is now around 5” in length. Keep in mind we live at home for the rest of this post, so we’re stuck in one bedroom. He also has a large water heater that keeps temp at 70F. Basking area with UVB and Halogen, 80-85F on average. He gets API conditioner and sludge destroyer for change outs. We’ve fed him Reptomin pellets with calcium for ever, just started getting larger sizes as he grew. Also give him dried red shrimp, meal worms, and crickets as treats with an occasional small live fish. Overall he has a good life
He has one large (fake) wood thing and a few large rocks - with mostly swimming space. I maintain him once a week with electronic vacuum pump, top off water, drain filter, rinse foam/carbon/bio in drained filter water. I replace carbon biweekly and foam once a month. Bio gets replaced twice per year. I use pumps to remove and replace water. Once a month he gets a full changeout of about 90% of the water, I scrub algae off everything in the tank and replace water and filters as specified above. Which brings me to the issue we’re having with algae.
I do the full change outs so often due to algae growth. It actually starts growing on the glass after a month and a half, even with the maintenance I do. This has become too much work for us and wondering if there is a better way or even if I’m missing something? What do the experienced RES owners recommend? Thank you!
