Hi all, I love reading your input and have gotten tons of information from this site. I have a question I'm hoping some of the experts can help me with.
We were in the process of setting up an outdoor pond for our 2 female RES (about 2-2.5 years old, 6.5 - 7 inches each) when Katrina paid us a visit. They survived the storm at home while we evacuated, although they somehow escaped our 55 gallon aquarium. We found them both in good shape and have temporarily put them outside in the pond shell (pre-formed pond?) on our deck while we repair the house. They seem to love all the extra space to swim around. We took a big planting pot and turned it upside down and cut an opening in it for them to have a little "cave" to hide out in and put some staggered rocks on the other end to give them a spot to climb up on and bask in the sunlight. I also sewed some elastic around the edges of a fabric window screening material to have a removable cover for the pond to keep out debris and other predators. We've just been emptying the pond every 3 or 4 days to keep it clean right now -- haven't had a chance to research filtration options yet, but overall I felt pretty good about their temporary set-up.
Here's the problem...I know we're not supposed to leave them outside when it gets cold. The last few days the temperature's started to dip down in the 50s at night. We don't get lots of freezing nights here (MS Gulf Coast) -- that usually doesn't happen until January or February, so I'm not concerned immediately with the water freezing, just being too cold for the turtles. It's hard to set up their tank inside right now because we sustained a lot of damage from Katrina and are in the process of having the house gutted.
Is there a heater you know of that I can buy to be able to maintain the turtles outside for another month or two? I brought them in last night and put them in the bathtub but the poor things look shell-shocked.
Looking forward to any ideas you might have...Thanks!