So after being gone for months..Koopa Troopa has a new tank.
Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:12 pmI'm completely open to suggestions or comments but just bear in mind that we have very little room and a bunch of cats in the house..so I need to be space conscious as well as protect my turtle from cat paws 
It took me a while to do all this because I'm more or less on a fixed budget and also I live with my mom and grandparents, so everything had to be approved by the owners of the house before I even did anything.
So these are pics of the tank and ATBA as a whole. (Note that blue sand was very hard to find, but I had my heart set on it.) We got the glass tank from Petsmart (since my cousin works there and I get a discount haha); it's 70 gallons. My turtle's shell just reached the 5 1/2 inch mark so I figure this should be okay for a little while until I get my own place (saving is hard). And my mom and I put the base together with wood and whatnot. And my brother helped make the ATBA uptop. Not even completely sure how he did it, I just know it's all cut from one biiig piece and kept together with wood and screws..I'd have to ask how exactly he did it. I just know the whole tank is a bit...well, put together from scraps. We had to put a wire mesh screen over the top of the ATBA though, because of the cats. But we cut a hole in it where the bulb goes (its one of those uvb/heat bulbs in one) and the light is secured in place so it won't move anywhere.
These are just closer pictures of the ATBA. There were originally two pieces of glass that went on the top of the tank and so we just left the glass on one half of the tank and used one of the large turtle docks as a ramp up to it and covered it with that reptile grass stuff. I have a thermometer in the basking area as well as one stuck to the tank for the water temperature. I also bought one of those nifty fish clips that stick to the side of the tank so she can eat her lettuce. I really only have her on a diet of green and red leaf lettuce and reptomin pellets and cuttlebone. Now that she has more room I'll go get her some minnows.
That's the left side of the tank. She has a soap dish that she can sit on if she wants. I'm thinking of getting one of those reptile hammocks for the other side of the tank if she doesn't like it. Also just a bunch of plants on the bottom and you can see the intake and outtake of the filter, I got a fluval fx5 and it took me and my mom a very long time to figure it out and set it up in a way that would actually work with the tank and the space we had.
This is the right side of the tank. There's one of those bubble stones in the back although you can't see it too well. We put the excess background on there to give her some privacy if she wants it. We also put some up top on the ATBA for the same reason. And you can see her water heater.
This is just a picture of the angle of the ramp going up to the ATBA.
I have to move her little soap dish down so it's in the water further. I wanted her to be able to be in the water but still stick her head out if she wants. My hope is that she'll sleep there. For the filter I have prefilter in the top basket, zeocarb in the middle, and biomedia in the bottom and each layer has a polishing pad.
I also put some turtle clean and reptisafe in the water so now all that's left before I put her in is to check the water temperature. I'm also gonna give her some of the loose rocks from her old tank when I clean it out. I wanted to give her a log or something to decorate, but she's too big and I'm afraid of her getting stuck.
Oh and we cut the wire mesh cover so that I can open the left side and put her food and stuff in that way. The whole ATBA just comes off in one big piece if I have to do something that I can't do from the top of the tank.
Soooo...any suggestions? I just want to make sure I'm doing all this right and didn't miss anything. =)
It took me a while to do all this because I'm more or less on a fixed budget and also I live with my mom and grandparents, so everything had to be approved by the owners of the house before I even did anything.
So these are pics of the tank and ATBA as a whole. (Note that blue sand was very hard to find, but I had my heart set on it.) We got the glass tank from Petsmart (since my cousin works there and I get a discount haha); it's 70 gallons. My turtle's shell just reached the 5 1/2 inch mark so I figure this should be okay for a little while until I get my own place (saving is hard). And my mom and I put the base together with wood and whatnot. And my brother helped make the ATBA uptop. Not even completely sure how he did it, I just know it's all cut from one biiig piece and kept together with wood and screws..I'd have to ask how exactly he did it. I just know the whole tank is a bit...well, put together from scraps. We had to put a wire mesh screen over the top of the ATBA though, because of the cats. But we cut a hole in it where the bulb goes (its one of those uvb/heat bulbs in one) and the light is secured in place so it won't move anywhere.
These are just closer pictures of the ATBA. There were originally two pieces of glass that went on the top of the tank and so we just left the glass on one half of the tank and used one of the large turtle docks as a ramp up to it and covered it with that reptile grass stuff. I have a thermometer in the basking area as well as one stuck to the tank for the water temperature. I also bought one of those nifty fish clips that stick to the side of the tank so she can eat her lettuce. I really only have her on a diet of green and red leaf lettuce and reptomin pellets and cuttlebone. Now that she has more room I'll go get her some minnows.
That's the left side of the tank. She has a soap dish that she can sit on if she wants. I'm thinking of getting one of those reptile hammocks for the other side of the tank if she doesn't like it. Also just a bunch of plants on the bottom and you can see the intake and outtake of the filter, I got a fluval fx5 and it took me and my mom a very long time to figure it out and set it up in a way that would actually work with the tank and the space we had.
This is the right side of the tank. There's one of those bubble stones in the back although you can't see it too well. We put the excess background on there to give her some privacy if she wants it. We also put some up top on the ATBA for the same reason. And you can see her water heater.
This is just a picture of the angle of the ramp going up to the ATBA.
I have to move her little soap dish down so it's in the water further. I wanted her to be able to be in the water but still stick her head out if she wants. My hope is that she'll sleep there. For the filter I have prefilter in the top basket, zeocarb in the middle, and biomedia in the bottom and each layer has a polishing pad.
I also put some turtle clean and reptisafe in the water so now all that's left before I put her in is to check the water temperature. I'm also gonna give her some of the loose rocks from her old tank when I clean it out. I wanted to give her a log or something to decorate, but she's too big and I'm afraid of her getting stuck.
Oh and we cut the wire mesh cover so that I can open the left side and put her food and stuff in that way. The whole ATBA just comes off in one big piece if I have to do something that I can't do from the top of the tank.
Soooo...any suggestions? I just want to make sure I'm doing all this right and didn't miss anything. =)