Sleeping Dock Part II: The final installment and set-up

Well I changed my mind and decided to go with a suction cup soap dish as Squirts sleeping dock. I bought it from Orchard Supply Hardware in the Houseware section. It was only $2.99. 

Heres how it went. The Pictures are in the order of how it went:

Step 1: heres the dish as It came. 

Step 2: Using the Dremel to file out the sharp edges.

Step 3: The dish all done, No more sharp edges! 

Step 4: Mounting the dish in the tank, Good to go! 

It took about 8 minutes to do this and only cost $2.99.

Feeding Guppies! Part II

This morning when I checked on the tank, the 2 guppies were still in there. Right now Squirt is still trying to get them He chases and misses constantly. He is getting a real workout from these little guppies, They are schooling him left and right. 

And, One of the guppies laid a baby guppy! It's hiding in the plants in squirts tank right now! It's so tiny! I had no Idea they would be pregnant and trying to birth guppies in the turtle tank! 

Feeding Guppies!

Today, I went to Trop-Aquarium, and bought 20 feeder guppies. I brought them home and put them into the Anacharis tank. I then netted 4 Guppies and put them into Squirts tank. At first My mom and I thought that he would just leave the fish alone and be oblivious. 

Little did we know he would go into hunting mode soon as he saw the guppies in there. He tried to attack them right away and was chasing them all over the tank. They were trying to hide in the plastic plants, under rocks, and the pieces of slate in the tank. Squirt would swim around and scare them up and out from the rocks and the chase would be on. 

He finally did get one Guppy because of "Guppy operator Failure". Squirt was chasing him across the tank and turned his head, the guppy saw this and thought the coast was clear and turned right into squirts mouth. His first live meal!

While I was gone out of the room, he ate another. There is still 2 guppies left swimming and hiding in the plants right now. He chases them every once in a while, but I suspect once the lights go out, He will have the upper hand and I will wake up to a tank with Squirt only and no more Guppies. I was very happy that he had the instant hunting instinct! 

Next time, I will get Rosie Red Minnows. Because they are larger, and slower, making it easier for Squirt to catch them. 

Sleeping Dock part 1.5

Update: I have decided to build Squirts sleeping dock out of Egg Crate, or as I recently learned it is called light diffuser. It is available at almost all hardware stores. 

So Soon as I can get into town, and to a hardware store, I am going to buy my "light diffusion"/ "egg Crate" stuff and my suction cups. 

So this is my "part 1.5" of a few part series. Part 2 will be when I get my materials and begin making my dock. 

Sleeping dock

I am definately looking into the idea of getting Squirt a Sleeping dock. 

He seems to sleep just fine wedged in between his basking dock, and resting his back legs on a plant that is under his dock. He seems to like to be near the surface so that he can stick his head up when necessary for air. I just don't think it looks comfortable for him to be sleeping like that.

I am thinking of getting him a Repti Hammock, By ZooMed.  They are only about 5-7 dollars, depending on the size of the Hammock. I can get them from petsmart and it seems like a pretty good deal. 

I have also entertained building my own out of egg crate, suction cups, and dental floss. I saw a pretty sweet one made with these materials made by Bulldog, On the turtle times forum. It looks like a good idea. I just need to know where to get egg crate. (If anybody knows where to get egg crate and is reading this, Leave me a comment telling me where to get some. Thanks!!) 

Another thing I entertained was going to Target and buying a suction cup soap bar holder. I then would suction cup it in the tank a few inches under the water. However, I am unsure about the materials the soap holder is made of, and whether or not they are Aquarium safe. 

Anyway, I will write a part II of this when I decide what I want and what I decide on. 

So, What exactly is needed for Basking?

In order for Red ear sliders to bask, They need a UVB bulb, as well as a heat bulb.

The UVB bulb should be rated for at least 5.o%. Stay away from the Terrarium bulbs rated for 2.o UVB, They do not produce enough UVB for turtles needs. In general you want a UVB bulb rated for between 5.0-10.0%. With a 5% you would want the bulb closer to the turtles basking area, now with the 10% you would want to move it a little farther away because the rays can be to intense and hurt the turtles eyes. Making the eyes puffy and reddish.

If your RES is showing signs of red, puffy eyes, I would suggest moving the UVB basking lamp farther away from the turtle and see if that helps.

Now, lets address the heat part of it. This can and is most frequently done with a common household bulb(Incandescent). I am currently using a 60 watt, however some people use 45watt, 75 watt, 100 watt, whatever. As long as what ever bulb you use gets the basking area about 10 degrees warmer than your water temperature. This gradient in temperature is large enough that the turtles will want to bask to digest food and warm up. But not so large that your turtle will get a possible temperature shock from the huge temp drop when they enter the water.

Another thing to keep in mind would be that UVB rays cannot penetrate through glass or plexi. and screen with 1/8" or less holes will limit The UVB by 30%.

and MVB bulbs...well thats a whole nother story. Maybe some other blog, some other time.

Turtle Docks

I have what is called a turtle landing. It is a little larger than the Zoomed docks or other similar docks. It fits in the entire corner of a 10 gallon tank, but works perfectly for larger tanks. I currently have it in use in a 30 gallon. Squirt loves to bask on it.

I have read reviews of it where people have said that their 6Inch and up turtles sink it and pull the suction cups around, making it unstable. Squirt is only 3 inches though and he is just fine with it and doesn't make it move when crawling up onto it. 

I have heard many good and bad things about the Zoomed turtle docks, however I have not tried them, So I cannot comment on them. I have heard many more good things than bad though however. and they come in different sizes to acommodate bigger turtles. 

So I figure that when Squirt gets larger and starts to sink his turtle landing, I will just go buy a large size Zoomed. 

Basking Temperature

Most people say that they keep they're turtles basking temp at around 85F or so. 

I actually have squirts at around 95F. He does self-regulate, and soon as he feels to warm, moves out of the direct beam, Or moves to half in, half out of the water. 

For his basking bulb, it is just a standard household 60 Watt incandescent bulb. I have it in a desk lamp set-up to lean over onto the screen top. You can see this in previous photos of tank set-ups. 

Anyways, I would recommend that you keep the turtles basking temp in the normal range, unless you already have the temp higher and your turtle self regulates. Otherwise your turt might bake! 

Above Tank Basking Area

I have though about making an above the tank basking area. However I have not actually put any of my thoughts into plans. 

What I am currently thinking, is making a box out of Plexi, Cutting a ramp square and heating the ramp square then bending it to go into the tank. I would then put something like astroturf in the basking area for squirt to lay around on. Gluing little aquarium gravel down on the ramp with aquarium grade silicone. and then having a roof with a nice size hole cut into it to allow a clamp lamp with uvb bulb to penetrate into the basking area, and another hole cut into it for a heat lamp.

Anyways, those are just some thoughts on my basking area, that will probably not be built until squirt gets a little bit bigger. 

Easter Treat

I gave squirt his Bloodworm treat on easter. He loved it, as usual of course. I don't have any pics of him eating, he always gets so crazy when he has his treats, so the photos come out all blurry. 

Good thing he still eats veggies, even though they don't compare taste-wise to treats .

complete tank cleaning

Last night I kinda got forced to do a full tank cleaning. It was due for one, however I was getting by nicely with only siphoning. I picked up some tubing that was 1/4 inch instead of 1/8 for siphoning. I started siphoning out the tank and had taken out about half the water, and the tank was looking nice and clean. Thats when I decided I would lift out the filter to clean the cartridges. When I lifted out the filter, everything the filter had sucked up in the past months blew up in the tank, because I did the removal wrong. Ugh. So Now I took apart the whole tank, drained it, cleaned the filter, cleaned the tank, cleaned everything, and set the tank back up. 

It went nicely and I had the tank back up and running in about an hour and 10 minutes.  

And of course, right after I set up the tank and place squirt in there, he takes a big poop. Ugh. 

Thanks for reading. 

Filter Position, Part II

Heres the filter in its now horizontal position. It works great! I messed around with the best angle of the outflow spout and found that just above its maximum down angle was perfect. It stirs up everything on the bottom, and blows it to the back wall of the tank, makes a loop and flies right into the filter grate! Perfect! 

I also made sure that the filter was propped on a couple little river rocks. One reason, was so that the bottom filter grate wouldn't be laying on the glass, doing nothing. By propping it up, the filters bottom grate gets all the lower stuff on the glass that isn't higher in the water column. Another reason, was that the rocks prevent Squirt from trying to go under the filter. (which he tried at first, but now doesn't) 

And now, My filter is almost totally hidden by the  large plant he sleeps in under his dock.                                                                                           

As you can see, the filter is not visible from a distance. Success in all ways! 

Filter Position

Well I have my fluval 2+ internal filter in the upright position in my tank. However, I feel that it isn't stirring up the stuff on the bottom in the best way possible. So later today, I am going to move the filter into the Horizontal position, with the spout pointing towards the bottom of the aquarium. This will turn the outflow onto the bottom, therefore stirring up all the stuff and sucking it into the filter. 

I'll post a part II of this when its done and set-up. 

thanks for reading. 

Tank Set-up

This is Squirts current tank, a 30 gallon. I have it filled with about 25-26 gallons of water. I am running a Fluval 2+ filter with the foam and carbon pads. It does a nice job of sucking everything up and cycles the tank water 4.36 times per hour. I have a light hood UVB set-up. It was a little more expensive buying the hood w/ light, but I feel it looks nicer than the ceramic clamp lamps. For basking heat I have a regular incandescent household bulb(60 watt) that is positioned over the basking area via a desk lamp. The desk lamp is perched on a 14" high piece of 3" diameter black PVC pipe, Which puts it at the perfect angle to sit above the basking area. 

I keep the water temperature at 78 degrees with a Theo Submersible heater.  The basking temp is about 86-90 degrees, And Squirt likes it that way. 

The bottom is some scattered river rocks with some slate slabs in between. The two tan pieces and the 3 black slabs you see are slate. 

Anyway, I think I have covered most of it. 

Thanks for reading.