Hello everyone. This is going to be lengthy post full of information and questions so I want to apologize in advance. Basically, before I even think of buying my first turtle I want to be sure that I am setup and equipped to care for it over its entire lifespan. With that being said my goal is to keep 2-4 turtles in a tank with fish and plants. I understand that the turtles may and probably will consume both and the plan is to keep smaller inexpensive fish as the tank will be designed for the turtles and the fish are additional decorations. I am planning on building my own tank such that I can customize it for my turtles needs. I would like to have a variety of turtles if possible and was looking at RES, Map turtles and/or painted turtles. My current plan is to build a 72 inch by 36 inch by 42 inch tank. If I keep the water level at 24 inches high this will give me approximately 270 gallons. For basking areas I planned on having 12 inch by 36 inch sheets of glass on both sides of the tank with ramps down to the water. I would put the basking areas approximately 1 inch above the water giving me 7 inchs of clearance to the top of the tank. Will this be sufficint basking area? or should I do a third island in the middle or a free floating basking spot? My next question is filtration. I was going to get two Fluval FX5 canister filters rated at 400 gallons each. Will this be enough? I know the amount of fish I have will also effect this so I will list what I plan on having. Keep in mind that the max size of any of these is 3-4 inches and according to my fishkeeping experience would require less than half of the tank to maintain in a healthy and peacful environment: 10 neon tetras 10 glowlight tetras 10 zebra danios 10 harlequin rasboras 8 red cherry shrimp 6 ramshorn snails 6 trumpet snails 4 emerald green cory cats 4 false julii cory cats 10 otocinclu vestitus 12 ghost shrimp 8 five band barbs Roughly have of these are great at finding and eating leftover food and algae so they are more of a cleanup crew than just decoration. I also understand that they still all create a bioload so having enough filtration is a must. If I need more filtration I will get it. I understand that like all animals turtles need special lighting and heat. I am not sure as to what water and basking temperatures the turtles will need so I am a little in the dark as to what lighting I need. All of the fish listed above will do well in basic aquariums or in higher light situations so whatever I need to do for the turtles will be fine. So with that being said what do you recommend? I will have digital thermoters in the two main basking spots as well as in the water to maintain the ecosystem as constant as possible. Because I plain on planting the aquarium I will need a substrate. The plants I have chosen are not very picky but do need something somewhat small ( as well as the cory cats). So what can I use as a substrate that won't negatively impact my turtles? Would pea sized gravel be too small? My next question is about tank current. Do aquatic turtles need a current in the tank to be happy? I am under the impression that the Fluval filters will provide some but will be enough or too much? Finally I need to know if any of the plants I have chosen can be toxic to turtles. The plants I would like to use are: Java Fern Java Moss Anacharis Anubias Christmas Moss Again, I have no idea how any of these might impact turtles. I understand the turtles may dig them up and destroy them and am willing to deal with that if/when it happens. I just need to know if they would harm the turtles if ingested. So, if you have read all of that and are not sufficiently aggravated with me, I would value any input I can get. I am not in a hurry to get this project started as I understand that proper planning now will help reduce future problems. My plan is to get the tank built and cycled for the fish and then add the fish and plants slowly until all of them are in the tank and existing happily. After this I would add the turtles. I don't know if I shoud add all of them at the same time to keep the all approximately the same age or add them in groups. Any advice would be great on this. My end goal is to have happy and thriving turtles and hopefully some fish as well. I am very open to comments and criticisms to my plan as I have never done this before. Thanks for all of your help.
Hello, and welcome to the boards! It's always great to see someone planning their setup in advance before rushing into anything. I would stick with the map and painted turtles. They stay a little smaller and red ears tend to be a little more territorial than the other species you listed. Plus, females can easily get a foot long, which would take up a large chunk of your space if following the "10 gallons per inch of shell length" general rule of thumb. I would get all females and introduce them all at once, preferably at a young age, so you have the greatest chance of them all getting along. In a setup that size they should have plenty of room to avoid territorial aggression, but it's best to play it safe. You never know when you may get a particularly aggressive individual, so obviously it's important that you keep a close eye on them. Make sure everyone is basking and eating regularly--you may want to feed them in separate feeding tubs if possible. This will not only prevent food aggression, but will also cut down on waste in the water as well. Your basking area platforms will be plenty big enough assuming you stick with the smaller species as recommended. Since you are using glass platforms, you'll need to add some kind of textured material to the top of the platforms and the ramps so the turtles can get good traction on them. This can easily be done by attaching textured stone tile to the fixtures with an aquarium safe sealant, or by creating your own texture with something like quikrete and an aquariums safe epoxy sealant. (Look up DIY aquarium backgrounds for more info on how to do that and what is safe to use.) The two canister filters will be very sufficient as far as filtration goes. That's right around 3x filtration for your water amount, and I personally count canister filters as a little something extra due to their high power and efficiency. As far as the fish and inverts go, don't get attached. It's not really a question of if your turtles will eat them; it's a matter of when. You'll essentially be spending $80+ on a nice meal for your turtles. Establishing a decently sized colony of feeder guppies in the tank may be a more cost effective choice, and they might breed fast enough to keep up with turtle consumption. Even sailfin mollies may be a better choice since adults get a good size and are quite chubby, plus they breed prolifically as well. I mainly worry that if/when the turtles go after the cories, they will injure themselves on the catfish's small barbs. You might have more luck with Kuhli loaches for your bottom feeders (they are slippery little demon fish and they burrow down into the substrate), and they'd likely be much safer if eaten. All of your plants are safe, but again, may be munched on at some point, although probably not with as much vigor as the fish and invertebrates. I usually recommend keeping aquatic plants with turtles because they may munch on them as it is a great addition to their diet. Check out this page for more info on keeping turtles with plants: http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Articles/plantedturtletanks.htm (Should answer your substrate question in better detail than I can.) For the turtles, you water temperature should be around 75F, and your basking spots around 85F. (In order to stimulate basking behavior, the land area should be 10 degrees warmer than the water.) If you will be starting with your turtles as hatchlings, they generally prefer their temperatures a little warmer than an adult, so you can raise it by about 5 degrees while they are young. The exact wattage you will need is entirely dependent on your tank size and house temperatures, so you will have to play around with that a little until you get the temperatures just right. Temps can fall into the low 70s at night. Your turtles will also need UVB lighting during the day. For more info on this, check out our article: http://www.reptileboards.com/threads/uvb-basics.64396/ and let me know if you have further questions from there. Your turtles should have the desert rated UVB lights--although they are not desert creatures, they bask in direct sunlight in nature and need high output bulbs to simulate this in captivity. I think I covered all of your questions, but let me know if you have any more or need some more info on anything. I look forward to seeing what you build in the future--make sure you post some picture updates as you go along! Once again, welcome to the boards. =)
