General Care Discussion :: is this water safe?

[stanleycortez]

hi!

glad to be here. I have a 9-year-old RES, named stanley cortez, and i have a question about the water in his tank. stanley and i have been away from home for about two months. during this period, i've had the filter running on low on my tank at home -- the media had been recently changed before we left. is this water safe for stanley, or should i change the media and water? no one has been living in the tank while we've been gone. i'd rather not have to completely change the water if i don't have to.

Thanks for your insight!

I appreciate it.

[VeipaCray]

The only way to know if the water is safe is to measure it. Do you have a drop based test kit that includes tests for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate? The ammonia and nitrite should be 0. The nitrate will not be 0, but should be low.

[Tokapeli]

sorry if this is off topic, but how did you travel with your turtle?

[VeipaCray]

sorry if this is off topic, but how did you travel with your turtle?

I'm guessing by car, plane, bus, train, or boat. Sorry... couldn't resist.

[stanleycortez]

hi! thanks for the advice on the test kits. i ended up being cautious and replacing most of the water. i filter the water before i use it in stanley's tank, but i'm curious about the composition (i've actually recently been working on a project about nitrogen contamination in tidal ponds!) so i'll look into getting a home kit to see what it tells me.

as for traveling - stanley usually travels in a plastic travel aquarium in the car with us. he hates it! we only put a little water in with him to minimize splashing/spilling, clean the travel tank out regularly on the road (sneaking him into starbucks' bathrooms, as they typically have individual stalls...), and try our best to keep him as comfortable as possible in transit. luckily for all of us, this usually doesn't happen more than twice a year. we had another large aquarium with our usual fluval filter set up in our summer haunt, so he was back in his element as quickly as we could get him there. if anyone has better ideas or advice about how to handle this, i'd love to hear about it!