Canadutch
Our above tank basking area for our turtles is complete! I’m so totally chuffed! Check it out…
How awesome does that look? It’s hard to see from the photo but it’s sitting on top of our aquarium. There’s still a bit to do with it, I want to get some fake terrarium plants to put around the top to hang in but other than that it’s finished!
I absolutely must thank my wonderful…
handy…
awesomely precise…
kickassingest…
HUBBY EVER!!
Over the past few days he’s sawed, measured, glued and screwed everything I’ve asked him to and he managed to make what I was imagining into something real. I love him for that…
I know I’ve said it before, but he RULES!
The turtles haven’t used it yet, but it’s only been up just a little over an hour. From what I’ve read it can take them some time to get accustomed to it and start using it. So I’ll try to be patient.
Here are some more photos:
Here you can see how it sits on top of the tank. It looks SUPER bright in the photo but it’s not actually blinding like that or anything. Although it does light up the livingroom quite a bit.
We also still get a decent amount of light through into the tank , so we don’t have to add any extra lighting to light up the tank itself.
We also decided to make the basking area black to match our tank. After looking into loads of different kinds of paint, I ended up finding black board paper that people use for cupboards and such. The back peels off so you can stick it to things.
It just happened to be the same shade and texture as the black on our tank. We used it across the front of the tank to block the light from the front too. It works great!
The inside of the basking area is made with a floor of Plexiglas as a base and then odd pieces of cork bark stacked up under the heat lamp. We chose to use Plexiglas because it can withstand heat and isn’t affected by water like wood or other materials would be. Plus, it lets the light through to the rest of the tank.
The background is made from a large roll of aquarium backing we bought from our local pet store. They didn’t have any to size so they sold us a massive roll of it for the same price as a 60x30cm piece. Good deal!
The ramp is made from a small Zoo-Med Turtle Dock placed on an angle to allow them to climb up easily onto the basking area. So far the farthest either of them have gone is to the top of the ramp. Frick! walked up, looked around and then leaped off into the water.
Aaah well, all in due time…
If you want to see more pics of the construction of the basking area you can find them here in my Frick! and Radar Album
Hey this is Beautiful! gave me some great ideas. I have two Red eared slidders in a 40 gallon tank Gherkin and Lulu. Lulu loves to swim and I want to give her more room so Im gonna build something like this and this Idea is great sine my cat Humphrey likes to sleep on top on the tank and it makes me nervous so now he wont be able to get up there. :OD that you tons!
I stumbled across this post recently while looking for something similar to build for my red eared slider’s aquarium. Is there a way you can tell me a bit about it’s structure and how it was built so I can create something similar?
That is a really great set up! You must need a whole room for all of the critters now! It is an awesome condo for the turtles!
Its come out very neat. Lovely piece of work.
I’m liking it and I can totally see how excited you are. I just love turtles too… ;-) happy new year!
Turtle Disneyland. They’re lucky little guys.
You have a gift for making animals happy and comfortable…just ask Gus and Ike! They didn’t even care that we were leaving town as long as they got to stay with you!
Wow! That looks great! I am telling ya! You should go into Pet-Heaven business!
Man, that set up is SU-WEET. He IS awesome. I think I’m getting a man-crush on him.
I admire people who can build stuff like that. I can’t hammer a nail straight.
Wow what a great job you guys did. Good job, it looks great.
Man that looks great. I need to fix up my aquarium because its looking sad and I have negleted it :/