Last year we acquired a pair of RES that had been abandoned at my father's business in the Spring. When we went to visit over Christmas, we took them home. They were already too big for the aquarium we had them in, but we weren't about to get a new tank knowing they'd be in a pond oustide once the temperatures warmed up.
We are now on our 3rd version of the pond (with main minor upgrades in between)
. I built the pond with little thought to keeping the turtles in, why would they want to leave right? Something else I hadn't given much thought to was overflow control. So after some experimenting and some extra building we have an escape proof (at least for Martha, our 2 year old Yellow Bellied Slider) with working overflow control.
The original pond was 4 feet by 5 feet with a depth of 2 feet. On the 5 foot sides there was a ledge that was 1 foot wide and 1 foot tall. The ledge was mainly for plants that needed shallower water, like mini cattails. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the mini cattails to grow. I also added in a water lily bulb and they grew very well.
You can read all about the original setup on our
turtle blog. You can also review the last couple weeks worth of posts to see how I got to the current setup.
The current setup is 5 feet by 5 feet with a depth of 2 feet and 1 ledge that is 1 foot tall by 1 foot wide (yeah, I'm going to try the mini cattails again). It holds approximately 337.5 gallons of water. In the first picture, you can see the ledge on the right. You can see sand then a small black strip and then sand again. The sand on the right is the ledge.
Supplies used:
10' x 10' EPDM Pond Liner
TotalPond 300 GPH Submersible Pump with filter housing (filter uses Coarse and Fine pads and bio media)
DIY secondary filter with debris pads, phosphate removal pads, activated charcoal and some more bio media
9W inline Beckett UV Sterilizer
~20 12" x 12" red paver stones
~100 4" x 8" red bricks
50 lbs Pool filer sand
~3 cubic feet of river rocks/egg rocks
Wire Mesh
The hardest area of the pond to secure is the area behind the basking log, which also acts as the overflow trench. The overflow trench is basically a 1 foot wide by 2 feet long trench that is 2 feet deep and full of stones. The stones allow any overflowing water to drain away quickly. The reason this area is hard to secure is because turtles love to climb and yes they can climb straight up and over the brick wall. Last year I just plopped paver stones on top, but the trench wasn't as wide as it was last year. Now that it is wider the 12"x12" paver stones wouldn't fit. Plus, I wanted light to get in there so if the turtles went back there, they'd get light.
I settled on the wire mesh because it is flexible, so I could make a dome to give it more strength. We have squirrels, cats, raccoons, possum and ducks that all like to visit the pond. The squirrels have run across the mesh and I imagine some of the other critters may have too. Having the mesh domed make's it much stronger and it has not collapsed yet.
Since setting up the pond, I have determined that the secondary filter I made is virtually useless. It doesn't seem to have helped control algae like I hoped it would (by removing phospates from the water). I added an inline UV Sterilizer that has removed the algae and keeps the water crystal clear. I will be turning the secondary filter into a waterfall of some sort.
In this picture, you can see the filter pretty much in the center of the pond. The pump is in the filter, surrounded by bio-balls and covered with the coarse and fine pads. I place the filter on top of two bricks to create a hiding spot for the turtles as well as a much larger hiding spot just in front of the filter to the right. The rocks to the left of the larger hiding spot covers the power cord. I used about 45 pounds of the sand just to lightly cover the bottom. I didn't want to cover it too thick and take away from the depth of the pond. In the bottom right of the pond is the lily bulb that as of today has starting to send lily pads to the surface. It looks like about 5 pads are on their way up. It generally takes a few days for the to get to the surface.
In the upper right hand corner is a head of green leaf lettuce. This photo was taken right after the turtles where in the pond and both of them are hiding under the large hiding spot. I give the turtles 1 head of green leaf lettuce a week and by the end of the week it is completely gone. After this first head of lettuce, I began using a weight to sink the lettuce to the bottom to look more nature and to give the turtles a more natural eating experience. Last year Martha did not really eat the lily pads. Every so often there'd be a triangle shaped chunk about the size of her mouth taken out of a pad, but she usually didn't take more than one bite.
As you can see in the first picture, I have placed amaryllis plants in the corners not used by the secondary filter (which is the white bucket with pink lid). Along the left and right side I have planted some flowering ground cover (can't for the life of me remember what it is called). On the top left corner, I have planted sweet peas. The plants have started growing nicely and should start flowering in about a month.