Habitat - Indoor

First post here, thanks to everyone here for posting pictures and advice in this thread. It was all very helpful, and this weekend I have put together an ATBA for my yellow bellied slider. I have a 40 breeder tank and finally got a canister filter recently on Craigslist. So I got the filter all set-up, upgraded to a new heater, and built the basking spot. It's made mostly of egg crate and zip ties, then the ramp is covered with terrarium liner carpet, and I grabbed one 18x18 tile and cut it to 18x12. It turned out that the cover/screen from my old 20 long tank just happened to fit the top of the egg crate structure, it was just too long, so I just cut off the excess and was able to put the lights on it. I connected an extra piece of egg crate under the ramp and main structure to hold the ramp in place, and all the above-water portions of egg crate were painted with a Rustoleum stone finish spray paint. I put a few rocks on the tile to dress it up a bit and might add a plant or two later. I put some food up there and he's starting to check it out, but he's still not too sure about the whole thing yet.

Looks cool. Have they tried to get out the sides?

Looks nice. Is that Rustoleum safe for plastic? I've only heard of certain paints that should be used with plastic.

new ATBA built this sat

Looks nice! Are you going to paint/stain or poly it?

havent decided yet. my buddy works at a vinyl shop may have him wrap it for me

cutepanda86 wrote:Looks cool. Have they tried to get out the sides?

Not really, but I did realize the corners of the basking platform on the ramp side were a potential escape point so I've blocked them off with rocks. I've got the water level just low enough where he can't climb out of the water either. So far so good.

steve wrote:Looks nice. Is that Rustoleum safe for plastic? I've only heard of certain paints that should be used with plastic.

The can is gone so I can't double check the label but I believe it's not a problem. I've used Krylon Fusion for plastic before and it's definitely good for that application, I just happened to have this stuff sitting around from another project.

sam1627 wrote:
cutepanda86 wrote:Looks cool. Have they tried to get out the sides?

Not really, but I did realize the corners of the basking platform on the ramp side were a potential escape point so I've blocked them off with rocks. I've got the water level just low enough where he can't climb out of the water either. So far so good.

That's great. I am just wary of the escape act since Sheldon is always looking for a way out whenever I bring him out of the tank. lol

Well I wanted to see if I was capable off actually making something for my turtles as far as a ATBA would go. So I had some old would from a bed frame and decided to give it a quick shot. Took a little over 30 minutes to make.

Let me know what you guys think!!!

Looks good.

finely finished my atba topper. just put more pics in my build thread
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33188

that back ground looks so awesome

ok, I have the pvc pipe, corners and a pvc cutter. now to build the ramp structure. I will be using egg crate (ceiling light cover) for ramp top and part where RES crawls up. Will add terranium carpet soon but don't have that yet.

1. For those who have a pvc ramp, do you need to drill holes in the pipes so water fills up inside the pipe?

2. And how do you hold it in place so it does not tip. RES is large and can probably tip it over at some point.

I like a tile on top of the ramp but can imagine if the tile was ever top heavy and tips over while RES was getting or on off, it might break the aquarium glass.

Either that or I am strongly considering using a reverse design of sam1627 viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15260&start=765#p327030 where its not ATAB but reverse and sits inside having from the top instead. I think this will prevent any tipping issues.

Any tips? Will start the build tomorrow.

You only want to use it for a ramp section?

Habitat - Indoor :: POST YOUR BASKING AREA PICTURES HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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