General Care Discussion :: I am that mom.

[gour0]

six inches.

[steve]

That might be a bit close if it's a strong UVB bulb.

[gour0]

repti glo 5.0 15 watt

[steve]

It should be OK to try. Watch out for any eye irritation and remember to do a burn in with new bulbs.

[gour0]

What does do a burn mean?

[steve]

"Burn-in", where it operates away from the tank and people. UVB output is greatest at this time and could put out too much UVB.

[PridgNYC]

Don't use distilled water, it is completely lacking in any of the normally present dissolved minerals which provide an isotonic environment for the turtle. Distilled water is hypotonic and is therefore a bad environment for living organisms. Water wants to stay in equiliburium inside and outside of cells, with the same concentration of dissolved solids inside as outside. (isotonic) When you place a living cell in to a hypotonic solution (distilled water or ROI water), dissolved solids are pulled out of the cell in order to create an isotonic environment.

The two most dangerous things in tap water are chlorine and chloramine. A lot of tap water also has some nitrates in it, but this is not dangerous to the turtle. Chlorine will evaporate within 24 hours, and chloramine can be removed with charcoal filtration. So britta water is fine since one of it's filters is a charcoal filter. I usually just fill a 5 gallon water bottle with tap water and throw in a bag of carbon and let it sit for a few days.

[devilduck]

Britta filters would be a very expensive way to remove chlorine and chloramine from tap water. I'd just get a bottle of water conditioner like Seachem Prime http://www.petco.com/product/7929/Seachem-Prime.aspx and add activated carbon to the filter.

[steve]

You don't need Prime since the carbon will remove chlorine and chloramines.