Hi Everyone,
It has been a long time since I last logged on. Have been most busy. My two little turtle-girls are almost all grown up and ready to go from a 75 gal with ATBA, which they enjoyed very much while growing up, to something that's as big as I can get for them.
I considered the used swimming pools on CL and thought naaaa. Wouldn't look good in my yard. The price was right, though. And, blue looked good.... My turtle's child's swimming pool has done so well for the last couple of years, but one of my turtles, Otani, can almost climb out of it. She peers over the edge looking for escape ideas.
(If you would like to skip the following story, scroll down to the *....)
I thought I would try leaving the turtles outside in the kid's swimming pool, since they were showing signs of cabin fever in their aquarium. While I was sleeping, the neighborhood raccoon got into the swimming pool, and apparently thought the turts were rocks, but found the goldfish tasty, ...the slower ones, that is, were tasty. So, the kid's swimming pool is too shallow for nighttime use. (I totally knew that, but shoot, the turtles like it out there so much and were saying, "Ah, come-on, just one night? We promise we'll be okay...." Right.)
So, I bet you're wondering, about the turtles being rocks. Well, the raccoon and her baby let the turtles go, so they probably didn't realize the sizable meals they had found. I finally found my turtles wandering in the yard thinking FREEDOM!!!! Well, maybe only one was thinking that. She made it really far, from one side of the backyard to the far end out toward the street! The other was pretty close to the pond still, on her back and all covered in pine needle camouflage. No injuries to either of them. They just had an adventure. But, I didn't like getting up at 4am when my kitty started whining pitifully to wake me up. He is obviously my volunteer raccoon alarm/turtle body guard. Anyway, it took 2 hours using a flashlight to find the turtles and rescue the rest of the fish, set up emergency quarters for the fish, an observation station for the turtles and finally get back to bed. I am totally not a morning person
So the future is now. It is time to get completely focused and seriously build them a top-notch, outdoor turtle haven.
*.... I need lots of your fabulous advice. CL has 2-300 gal blue livestock tanks for sale.
I'm renting a Uhaul to go out and pick those up at the ole farm sometime this weekend.
I don't know about pond filtration. I have an Eheim 3e Pro and a Fluval 405, both of which I use for my 75 gal setup. If I convert my 75 gal to a fish tank, I wouldn't need those large pumps for fish waste (?), I guess/wonder... so could I use those two filters with my two stock tanks? Or do you have to have a completely different filtration system or a combination Eheim/Fluval/something else? I don't know how a filter would handle pine needles and cottonwood tree leaves,... help, please!!!
Do stock tank heaters work for turtle habitats? I know that hibernation is something like 40-43F. I guess both tanks need a water fountain to keep the water flowing? Or would the pumps be enough water movement to help avoid winter freezing, so no need for an additional fountain... I'm in CO, so winters get down to -10F sometimes, -22 rarely. Would the water within the Eheim/Fluval/something else tank itself freeze in a cold winter?
As far as setting up the two tanks, do you think this sounds like an okay plan so far?
This is my plan:
Position the two tanks with an appealing offset to each other, relative to a rectangular grape stake fence with rounded ends that will surround them. The two drains will be positioned close to each other and toward the back. Pumps/filters will be positioned toward the back and enclosed within an electrically safe box (?). There will be cedar grape stake sunning decks along both front and back to cover the spaces between the two offset tanks and the surrounding fence, making it impossible for the turtles to slip down between the tanks and fence. There will be a bridge, a sunning bridge, in the middle where the two tanks meet, continuous with the front and back decks. The bridge will have ramps going into the water of both tanks allowing the turtles to walk out, up and over into the next tank, or to just sun. The bridge and sundecks will form a seamless seal so that there will be no cracks for the turtles to fall through. The electrical equipment will be under it's own portion of the deck in back, its shape depending on the size of the box, etc. Grapes stake fence boards forming the fence will be cut to stand 4' high to encircle the two tanks (which are about 2' high), the sundecks, and the electrical box area like wall paneling. There will be no sharp corners to the vertical fence, so I don't think the turtles can get a wedge to use to climb out. I think they will stay put and have deck space plus up to 600 gal for ample room to roam and be happy.
I don't want to have this in my yard, but I am committed to these two girls. I hope the grape stake fence (paneling) surrounding the tanks/decks it will be a nice backdrop for some flowers and ground cover of some kind. Any suggestions? At least the boards match the fence surrounding my yard, so the enclosure might sort of blend in.
For access to clean or do whatever with the two tanks, the 4' vertical fence will be hinged along the two straight-aways, front and back, at about 1/2 way up to swing toward me and down out of the way. These "gates" will have latches to secure them in place while they are up. It's difficult to put that into words.... That way, gates are not being swung open, scraping up ground cover.
I have a spot in mind, sunny with late afternoon shade. It's sort of bigger than a spot, I guess...
Okay, what do ya think? I hope to do this right the first time.