Habitat - Outdoor :: Speedy and Shelldon's Outdoor Habitat

[Speedyshelldon]

Here are some pictures of our current setup. We are going to put some nice ground cover over the mud to make it look better. I was going to use pine bark mulch. Does anyone know if that is safe for turtles? They spend most of their time in the water or on their rocks, but will occasionally do a lap around the atrium, so whatever ground cover we use has to be safe for them. We had some aquatic plants but they devoured them. Any suggestions for aquatic plants that won't be eaten so quickly? I'd like to add some color and thought floating plants would provide more hiding places for them too.

We are new at keeping RES and plan to upgrade to an even larger pond and better filter in the next few months. So far, this is a huge improvement over their previous living conditions. A friend of ours wanted to get rid of them so we adopted them. They were living in a tiny (maybe 20 g) aquarium with that colored gravel you see in fish tanks at the bottom. I figure this pond is better than what they had and they do seem happy.

Link to album:
http://s1052.photobucket.com/albums/s455/bimzer/

Some pics:

[steve]

It looks OK, but they'll need more space soon. There is a lot of potential to make something, maybe even with a sandy nesting/basking area. Would you be able to plant grass or moss in there? What about artificial turf (as long as the runoff doesn't go into their pond)? What are the temperatures like?

[mthyst]

Hi! just looked at the pictures of your outdoor pond. It looks great! If you wouldn't mind sharing some info on how to set it up, I would love to get some tips from you. I have one RES and haven't figured out if it is male or female but working on it. We call her Paddlefoot, we acquired her from one of my Kindergarten parents. When we first got her she was about the size of a 50 cent piece but now she is more like 3". I would like to set up a pond for her outside and have no prior RES experience. If you could help with setting one up, what size filter,etc., you used I would really appreciate any info you could share.