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hey wassup everyone. i've been reading these forums for a while and posted about sand being used as a substrate. i got some good feedback and decided to go with it. the sand has been in the tank for about 3 weeks now and till this day no ill effects. from time to time i can see them digging around and finding bits of lettuce. i can say that using sand won't cause that much harm for all of those that want to use it. i don't think that cleanup every week is that much harder. i'm currently using a homemade basking dock with 6 pieces of tile. note that there are two parts to the pvc support brackets that are holding up the tile. last but not least here are some pics of my turts. =D enjoy. feedback is very welcome.


main view of the tank


my two turts


basking dock

how has the sand been on the filter... is that a canister filter you are using?

yes i do use a canister xp3 filter and so far there has been no clogging. i can usually tell when theres a clog when my output shoots water lower than usual. if your afraid that the sand might get trapped into the filter you can point your output at an upwards angle to agitate the water also because this way if the turts do kick up some sand it wont get blown around by the current that much. i have experimented with the output position a few times and found that this helps the most. one thing i like to do is when its feeding time and the turts go crazy i like to shut off the filter for a few minutes so they don't kick around the sand too much. it sounds as if this is a lot work but its not. hope that clears things up for you.

The turtle that is sticking it's head up reminds me of my turtle!