Construction Begins

For a while now I’ve been eager to do some modifications to our turtle tank. You see, the general rule of thumb for keeping aquatic turtles is to have 10 gallons of tank per inch of turtle (shell length from head end to tail end). We currently have a 55 gallon tank which means that if we follow that rule, we can only have up to 5.5 inches of turtle. Ours are almost 3 inches each now. They are growing like WEEDS!

This is an older photo of Frick!, taken a few months ago.   The turtles love to bask under their heat lamp.   This is very healthy for them as they get the UV light while up there as well. 

It’s so fun to watch them, sometimes the two of them will get up on their basking area and stretch all out doing their ‘turtle yoga’.  The only problem is now that they are getting a bit bigger I need to create more space for them in their tank.  Which means raising the water level and making an above tank basking area for them.

I’ll show you what I mean…

This is how my tank has been laid out up until now.  On the left you can see their cork bark basking area with the heat lamp.  In order to create a dry basking area for them, the water level needs to be lower.   The dry area can’t be higher because they are sneaky little devils and will climb out if they can.

So in order to fill the tank fully, there needs to be something built on top of the tank that can be used as a basking area but is also safe and escape proof.   That’s what we have been gathering materials for lately and are going to try to build today.  If all goes as planned it should be very cool once it’s completed. We got the wood, and yesterday we went and had some Plexiglas cut to size. So now it’s just a matter of putting it together and then figuring out how we want to decorate it.

I have been researching what other people have created. Scouring my turtle forums for examples.   I have found two that I really like and plan to make ours a cross between both.  You can see them here and here. 

Once that is done the turtles should be good for a few months at least.  Then I plan to buy a bigger tank for them (but will probably still make another above tank basking area just because I think they are cool) and turn this tank into a nice fish tank.  I’ve always wanted to have an aquarium with really cool looking colorful fish.   I’ll have to learn more about it first and see what kind of fish I can have without needing a salt water tank.

Anyhow, wish us luck and hopefully I’ll have a progress report within the next day or so!