redearslider.com

Hi everyone!! If you've traveled through the other forums then you've probably seen my thread... I've recently become a proud owner of a bay box turtle

The link to the other thread is... http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11672

But in any case here's a pic...


His name is Squirt, and I just wanted to ask anyone and everyone for some advice and if possible pictures of different aquariums for a box turtle, I know they need land to walk on as well as water but I just want to have a visual to study at if possible!! THANX!!!

It's a Florida boxie, right

I think they need mostly land area with a small wading pool. I'm not sure if box turtles are commonly kept in aquariums...

yeah, by aqauiums I meant it being filled with dirt/sandon one side, then to the opposite side a shallow end of water...

When I was doing research on a setup for apollo, I read that boxies prefer an enclosure with opaque sides. Go for a big rubbermaid container, they're way cheaper and the turtle won't be stressed by seeing stuff outside the tank. Here's a pic of my setup, based pretty closely on advice from jenaero



It's a 55 gallon rubbermaid (20 bucks at walmart) with a mixture of topsoil and sphagnum moss (about 6 bucks total from lowes) a rock to eat off of (keeps the beak trimmed) a paint pan with water, and a few hiding places (one is the habba huts you find in the petstore, the other is a plastic flowerpot cut in half, he prefers the habba hut) On top is a barbecue grate, if you have a spare oven rack you can use that, I found mine at Ace hardware for 20 dollars. The lamp is a T-Rex mercury vapor bulb, in a deep brooder lamp from home depot. Check out some of the other recent threads, I think jenaero posted some pics of her new larger enclosure that were pretty cool!

Edit: Forgot to mention, that thing in the middle is a flowerpot heater, it's one clay pot nested in another, with a third, smaller pot turned upside down inside them. You thread a bulb fixture through the hole in the small pot, screw in a 15 watt bulb and it provides a low level heat source in case they get cold at night. I think you can get the fixtures at craft stores, I got mine from Apollo's rehabber so I'm not totally sure.

cool.

i really like the flowerpot heater

how big is your boxie? hard to tell from the pic, although it's very cute!!

obviously adult boxies are always ideally kept outdoors whenever weather permits.



This is what I had before I moved. Unfortunately, my new place has absolutely no place outside for them.



This is my current setup, but now it has 4 tubs connected together. There is a set of heat / UVB lights on both end tubs. It provides them almost 20sq. feet to wander around in.

Hey runninwideopen, Squirt's is 1 and 1/2 inches long, really tiny!! But I love your box's home!! They look AWESOME and with alot of room for them too... But yeah how much water should I have an inch or so or about enough to go over his shell???

oh and by the way what type of dirt do you use?? thanx

Nice looking box turtle setups! Makes getting one even more tempting

I love the idea of cutting the rubbermaids and giving them 'rooms' to wander through! Are those zip ties holding them together?

Looks like it. You can use 2 to make a temporary "lock"

aqua - you got a baby!! i have 2 baby 3-toeds. you don't want to have the water so deep that if they get flipped over in the water they will drown. i've had a couple scares where i came home and one was upside down in the water dish. For some reason he was having trouble flipping himself over, but luckily it wasn't so deep that he couldn't breath.

Here is a pic of my baby setup:



You can see the water is not very deep. I do give them a good soaking in some deeper warm water about once a week. I put them in the tub with one end pretty deep, and one end where they can walk. Gives them a chance to swim a little, which 3 toeds like to do.

For substrate I use a mixture of topsoil, natural reptile forest bedding (from pet store) and peat moss (from pet store). With all these tubs I've got it's about $60 every time I replace it, eek. So, right now my adult Ornate enclosure does look different because there is only topsoil in it. The adults are being dewormed right now, so I have to replace the substrate one more time. When I replace it again I'll go back to the mixture. I also suggest having the live plants. The turtles love them.

Also, I've read many sites that say keeping a box turtle in an aquarium or terrarium causes them a lot of stress. It's better for them to be kept in something with opaque sides so they can't see out.



Starchick and Steve - Yep, they're just zip ties. I drilled 2 holes on each side and ran the zip tie through. Also, under that astroturf are 2 more zip ties run the same way. Here are some more pics:

Wow, very cool setups, Runnin! I like the connected tanks idea! It's like those modular habitrail setups for hamsters, lol!

LOL thanks. We do have a hamster too, but his setup is no where near as cool.

I was really bummed when I found out my new apartment didn't have any outdoor patio at all, so I had to figure something else out. They seem to like it, although the tend to stay in the far right tub most of them, except when they want to go over and soak.