General Care Discussion :: A Major conundrum

[Spike 7.62]

If nothing else, I must recommend that you get a water heater and thermometer. They aren't expensive, and moderating the water termperature is one of the biggest ways to keep them healthy.

Good looking turtle!

-spike

[Seroster]

Yes it's on my to do list but we're pretty limited budget wise for the week, my next investments are Thermometer, Heater, and Filter probably in that order. Gonna have to clean his tank a lot till then.

Something I've been thinking about, for a basking set up, is a CHE + UVB bulb a good set up or do I need more than the UVB lighting? My ideal setup for a basking area is CHE on all the time, with the UVB light on during waking hours on a timer, as I'm not good at sleeping w/ light in the room. But seems like I read somewhere that they need more than a UVB light so I wasn't sure. Anyone have input there?

[ProckNet]

Try reading this... its helped me out http://www.redearslider.com/index_lighting_basking.html

[TheComputerGremlin]

For lighting, you want both a basking bulb (like a household incandescent, I recommend starting at 60W) and a UVB bulb (at 5% UVB). In tanks larger than 55 gallons, you can get a combination bulb called an MVB, or mercury vapor bulb. These emit both heat and UVB.

A ceramic heat emitter is not generally used on aquatic turtles in my understanding.