Friday, November 21, 2008

Python syphon

Well I finally broke down and just bought one of these things. I havent used it yet, it just came in today. It only hooks up to the hose fitting outside.. so that sucks big time. 

I'm gonna go to osh tomorrow with the part that connects to the sink and see if I can find a 1"-3/4 female threaded piece of PVC.. Hopefully I can find that easily. 

Then I can hook it up in the shower and all will be well. 

Got a new filter

I bought a Fluval 404 the other day on Ebay.. $85 brand new, shipped w/ media. Very good deal I think. So it came on the 19th and when I got home from school I set it up. It was a bit tricky to get everything right, and it ended up taking a couple hours. I had to cut the intake and extend the outflow to get it where I wanted it, but in the end it worked great.

For my media I have this; top to bottom order. 
  1. pantyhose filtration(polishing)/carbon pack
  2. biomedia
  3. biomedia
  4. fluval prefilter blocks
It was a bit tough to prime, but I searched on the cichlid forum when I was trying to prime it and it said to fill up the canister with water to help with priming... so I did that.. pushed the priming level, then plugged it in and it started right up. 

I like this filter a lot so far. does a fantastic job. 

I'll report again later on this filter and update it as I go. 

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Fine filtration

I got this Idea from a member on the redearslider forum, so I have to give credit where it is due.
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17756&start=0
Anyway, the filter is made of a piece of stocking stretched over the second seperator grid in my xp1. It's the last stage of filtration and has done wonders for my water clarity.





























And the last picture shows it sitting in the basket before putting the basket lid on.

Adjusted the timer today

Well you know summer is starting to come to a close when you feel the need to adjust the timer to turn off an hour or so earlier.

Thats what I did today, went from 10:15AM-10:30PM, to 10:15AM-9:45PM.

If you don't have a timer for your lights, I would highly recommend one. They are worth every penny. I have a digital one and it was only about 13 bucks.

Sand rake update

yeah, if you make the sand rake, I would recommend making the handle 3 squares wide or doubling the 2 square handle.

I was using the small sand rake, moving a lot of sand, and the handle snapped in 2 pieces in my hand. oops.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

DIY Sand Rake

Well I came up with this idea for a sand rake, and it works great!
Materials needed:
Hot glue gun
eggcrate
angled pliers

1. cut out the handle and the rake grill

























2. glue on at an angle














3. so that it'll work like this.














And heres a short video I made of it in use.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Updated photo of Squirts tank!

heres a recent photo of squirts tank:what do you think??

Where'd the photos go!

Sorry all, I moved all my photos around in photobucket, so most of the pictures got all screwed up!

If you need/want to see a specific photo, leave me a comment.

thanks

Squirt is a boy!

Yep, he was standing all funky the other day, I looked over and saw turtle junk.

Gross, but I am pretty damn happy that I have a boy turtle!

Monday, August 25, 2008

I got an Ornate Boxie.




I got an ornate boxie yesterday! She's so awesome. She's about 3 1/4" long.

She is in good health, and ate 6 waxworms!! and a strawberry and lettuce.

she came with her own habitat, for only $45!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I got bit...

I finally got bit by squirt the other day.. on the pinkie! I took him out of the tank, and was looking for a bin to put him in, and while i wasn't paying attention, my pinkie must've drifted in his face, and WHAM!

He didn't break the skin, it was more like a hard pinch. But it was weird, he kind of "pulsed" while he was locked down on my finger, like he'd lessen the pressure, then bite down hard again.

I officially can say I have been bit now!

Leaving for a few days.

Going on a road trip on Wednesday, Gonna leave squirt alone for 4 days! First time he will be completely alone for any length of time since i got him in december.

I am feeling confident, it's only 4 days. I have a digital timer for the lights, Automatic feeder, reiliable heater, just replaced the heat bulb because it blew out, So far all is looking good.

I'm just trying to better figure out how to make the automatic feeder feed a smaller amount. I am going to have to restrict the opening with tape because it currently spits out about 7 pellets per rotation, and I usually only feed 5-6 pellets. so i don't want him being overfed.

Monday, August 11, 2008

To Python or Not to Python

That is the question.

I have considered getting one of these for a while, but still not sure about it. part of me says I don't need it, the gadget dork in me says I need it.

I have been getting along just fine by using my XL tank vaccum, with extended tubing, and then bringing the hose in the house to quickly fill the tank back up.

But we'll see how it goes, still not completely sure I need one.

Great way to clean sand while in the tank

I found a Zoo Med sand scooper works great for cleaning up turtle poop and general debris in sand while in the tank. It's a cheap investment to make cleaning your sand very easy. And you won't have to take any water out via siphon just to clean the sand!
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=13992

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Electric Yellow Cichlid

Considering getting one of these. I will put it in with squirt, and see how it goes.

There have been many turtle keepers on various forums that have had success with keeping electrics in with their turtles, so I figure I'll give it a shot. They are fast and and have the same temp. requirements as a turtle.

The main reason I want one is because they look good, I mean they would really liven up my tank.

I think ill only get one for now, since they are 10 bucks a fish, and if squirt decides he is going to eat it, id rather have 10 not 20 bucks in his stomach haha.
Heres a good article on them
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/cichlid/electricyellow.php

Friday, August 1, 2008

Rasberries

I gave squirt a rasberry today, I tried to hand feed it to him, but he was a bit too scared to take it since he's used to just taking reptomin from my hands. But then I let it sink, and he kinda fluttered at it, stared at it, general curiosness, blah blah. But then he didn't eat it!

Oh well! 

Mazuri Aquatic Turtle Diet

I finally found a website that sells it. And it was a good deal too, only $8.59 for a pound, and $13.98 shipped. It was cheaper than from Mazuri directly, which they wanted $11.98 or something for one pound before shipping. 

Now whats so great about Mazuri you say? I like the fact that mazuri has a very good reputation, as well as the fact that they use high grade ingredients. 

I will still feed reptomin, however I want to make Mazuri the staple pellet, with reptomin being the secondary. 

But anyway, I'm a little disappointed with the shipping, I ordered on friday, I got order confirmation saying it was sent, on monday. Now on friday I still have not recieved my pellets. You'd think that it would take less than 5days to ship a package just over 300 miles in the same state. 

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cleaned out tank...almost

I did a large cleaning of the tank the other day. I cleaned the canister filter, wiped the tubes of the filter, cleaned half of the sand, did a 50% water change, cleaned the plants of algae, and cut out the screen for his UVB light. 

It took me a while, but it was a relief when it was finished. 

better container for reptomin


Well I was getting a container to keep my CGD in for my geckos, and I thought why not get one for reptomin. 

It's a snapware container, which is water and air tight. 

Sunday, July 20, 2008

attack of the algae!

Holy crap. I left for a few days and was lazy and didn't do the weekly maintenance, the tank had some algae going on before but now, 4 days later, wow. The stuff is all over the place. On the front, at the sandline, on the back, and other areas. 

So looks like tomorrow I'm going to have to go full on and do like a 50% water change, clean out my filter and the tubes from algae, wipe the sides, and scrub off the dock. 

The things we do for these damn turtles....sheesh. Lol.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Hand feeding.

Well today I actually tried handfeeding Squirt. 

He did really well, at first he was a bit skittish, but after a few inspections he came right up and took the pellet from my hand. I fed him his daily 4 pellets by hand today. It was pretty cool, I can definitely see how it could be called "bonding" time with your turtle. 

I was a little skittish of even feeding him the pellet, for fear of him missing and nabbing my hand. But people had said if they nip you hand while feeding it isn't as hard as a aggressive bite. So I just went for it. 

So all in all it worked great, but I don't know how often I'll do it because it is somewhat time consuming compared to just tossing in 4 pellets and watching them disappear in 10 seconds or less. 

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Digital Timer

I got this a few days ago, and man, how awesome. I had been a bit behind the curve with getting a timer, and had been just turning on the lights when I woke up and when I went to bed. Squirt was getting a bunch of weird hours of light, varying from 11-14 hours a day. That's not cool. 

So we had a timer, but it was an older type that had the push pin style of setting it. Needless to say, I tried to figure it out, but it was a son of a bitch to set, and I ended up just giving up on it. 

I got this Tabletop digital lamp timer. How awesome, It is SO easy to set it's ridiculous. All you have to do is set the time, press set, select the on time, press set, select the off time, press set. Done! so frickin easy. It has a double timer kind of thing where you can set 2 cycles per day, but that's useless for me. 

Anyway, I set it so that it comes on at 10:15AM and goes off at 10:30PM. This way it suits my summer schedule a bit better and gives him 12 hours and 15 minutes of light. Now he can get on a real schedule. 

It was only like $12 bucks too. And it has a 300 watt capacity. But I don't even come close to that, 60 watt basking bulb, 25 watt fluorescent strip light, and a 15 watt UVB tube. So that's only 100 watts being drawn. Maybe give or take a few watts because I'm only guessing about the wattage of the strip light. 

Anyway, Good stuff, Get a timer if you haven't already!


Saturday, July 5, 2008

Algae! Ugh.

I hate algae. It finally showed up along the sand line in the front of the tank. I have been wiping the tank every week, but I didn't wipe under the sand line. So now there's algae. 

Oh, and it's finally showing on the edges of his basking dock as well. Have to scrub that off as well. 

Anyway, I'll get rid of it when I do my tank maintenance tomorrow. It's due for it. I'll just push the sand back and wipe from now on. 


Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Bubble Feature

Well, I tried an airstone in Squirts tank the other day, as I have heard many peoples turts like to play in the bubbles and bite them and whatnot.

So I put it in there, he's all curious of course, but the second I turn it on, he freaks out and swims to the other side of the tank and stays there!

He was staying over there for more than a few minutes, so I turned off the airstone to try another day.

So I turn it on the next day, He didn't give a shit about it! Just swam around like normal and paid no special attention to the bubbles. So I took the airstone out as it didn't even look that great.

So squirt+bubbles=no go.
Oh well, it just wasn't meant to be I guess, Ha!

Strawberry!

I thought since my mom has a garden with way too many strawberries ripe at once, I would give one to squirt for variety.
So I grab one, cut a few slits in it, and then clip the stem into my veggie clip. I stick it in his tank and he comes right over. He looks at it like what in the hell is this! and kinda did the flutter motion without the shaking to see if he could break it up smaller. Then he bit the berry a few times, and ate most of what he bit off.

Then, He lost interest! He didn't pick at the berry again all night! Little Bastard. haha

In hindsight, I should have cut the berry into small strips and let them float around the tank. Maybe he would have eaten better that way, The veggie clip is still new to him and he seems to like chasing his food around rather than having it in one spot constantly.

Anyway, Let your turt get a taste of summer! give him/her a piece of fruit!
(not too often though, once a week max, and no bigger than what would fit in their head since it's high in sugar!)

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Uprooted plant solution!

Well I came up with a solution to uprooted plants. I honestly don't know why plant makers don't weight the bases to their plants, the bastards.

Anyway, All I needed was some aquarium silicone, gravel, and plants(Duh).
So I started putting down a good thick layer of silicone and pressing gravel into the silicone. I did this until the whole plant base was covered with gravel and did this 2 more times with my other plants.

Now if Squirt reveals the plant base, it doesn't matter because it stays on the bottom!

Been a long time

Lots of new stuff happened since I posted last!

I got busy with school and finals week, but now I am out on my summer break and I can start blogging about turtles again.

Okay, So I upgraded squirts tank to a 55 gallon acrylic. I got a sweet deal on it through craigslist. It came with the stand, Rena Filstar XP1, Marineland Penguin 350 Hang on back, heater( which upon inspection was broken.), water conditioner, a XL gravel vacuum, I think I got everything, but I got the whole shebang for $250 damn good deal.

Since the heater was broken, I had to get a new one, I went all out and got a Marineland visi therm stealth, 250 watt, for up to 75 gallons. What a quality heater. It puts all glass ones to shame.

I did sand as a substrate in this tank as well, nothing else would do now that I had it in the other tank.

It took forever to mount the hoses to the xp1 because some things were missing so I had to make that up with some 5/8" tubing. In the end it all worked out because I got to customize what depth the intake and outflow were at.

Heres a pic of the new tank:

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Sand Update

Well I have had the sand for what, 2-3 weeks, and it is still going great. The tank water has remained very clean, and I have only been replacing evaporated water as needed. Squirts poo just sits on the top, along with other debris to either get sucked up by the filter, or get netted up by me. 

If you are thinking about sand, I recommend doing it! If you are reading this and have any questions about the process of switching to sand, feel free to post a comment here and I'll answer it. 

Stupid Cuttlebone

The Cuttlebone I had bought before floated like a cork for as long as it took for Squirt to eat it. I ran out of that cuttlebone, So I had to buy a different one. This new one, I removed the backing and all, then break off a chunk, and throw it in the tank. I wake up the next morning to see it sitting on the sand, Sunk. 

Stupid thing didn't even last a day without sinking. I'm probably just going to give the rest of this cuttlebone to the Ornate Boxie, then just go buy a better cuttlebone and hope it doesn't sink. 

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Loves his lettuce.

I gave squirt his usual shell sized piece of lettuce this morning, but when I checked back 30 min later it was all gone! Normally it takes him all day to slowly munch his piece of lettuce. So I gave him another piece of shell size lettuce which he ate in 30 minutes. I decided that was it for veggies today, Can't have a fat turtle on my hands! 

I still have been procrastinating on re-planting that plant. I was going to net his poop and then re plant the plant but he ate the poop already so I thought I would let the plant slide. 

Who knows though, its only 8:25 so I might fix it before I go to bed later. 

Friday, April 18, 2008

Lettuce Munching

I finally remembered to get Squirt some romaine lettuce and he loves it! I have been feeding it to him for the past few days and he has really taking a liking to it. Today he actually finished his whole shell sized piece of lettuce that was floating in the tank and cleaned up the little torn up bits on the surface. So happy that I got a turtle who enjoys his veggies. It would be a pain in the ass if he didn't like veggies. 

Uprooted a plant

Squirt uprooted the plant in the center of the tank today. Squirt wasn't really digging to uproot the plant, But he likes to swim through and around it so it ended up slowly pulling out of the sand. It's okay though because I need to scrape off the water line marks with a razor and add some water tomorrow. So I will just fix the plant while I am at it. 

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Squirt finished shedding scutes!

Squirt has finally finished shedding all of his scutes! His shell is very smooth and healthy looking now. He has a lot more yellow stripes on the top of his shell that have really come out with the latest shed. Would post a photo but he moves way too fast. 

Made the switch to sand


I made the switch to sand last night. It went very well and the tank is looking WAY better than it did with the river rocks. It only costed $8.00 for enough sand to do the whole tank. I rinsed the sand out very well and got minimal cloudiness. It went very smoothly and Squirt loves to walk on the sand. The Fluval Internal filter does not pick up any sand and the sand settles very quickly if it gets kicked up. I am very pleased with how it turned out. 

Friday, April 11, 2008

Shedding Scutes

Squirt is finally shedding his loose scutes and his shell is looking very vibrant. His colors came back brighter this time after the shed. It's kinda funny though, Only 2 in the center of his shell have actually completely  come off so he has two vibrant scutes with all the rest being dull and bubbly. It kinda sticks out like a sore thumb. Hopefully he finishes shedding soon, I'm sick of bubbly and dull! Ha ha 

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Squirts tank with the addition of river rocks.

Well, As promised heres some pictures of squirts tank with the new river rock/slate bottom. They took forever to place and are probably going to be messy but the look of the tank makes it all worth it!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Siphoning the tank, Gone wrong....Again!

I went to do the siphoning of the tank today, and had the whole tank spotless after a little bit of siphoning. Thats when it went wrong. I decided I was going to clean my Fluval internals media. I lift the filter out somewhat carefully and slowly, But I should have done it fast..a bunch of crap blew up into the water! UGH!

So I take Squirt out and put him in a corner of my room and close it off so he can wander freely on a little patch of carpet. I then siphon out all the crap, clean the filter, scrub the dock down and everything else.

Thats when I decide that the Slate rock slabs I have had in there for a few months are looking bare and boring. So I go and grab a bunch of large river rocks and place them in the tank along with the slate. So now the bottom of my tank is black and tan slate w/ lots of river rocks. It looks very nice if you ask me.

So I put the dock and filter back in the tank, plug in the heater, and decide I should give the lone guppy a buddy or few. Well I gave him 4 more buddies so there is now 5 guppies in the tank. We'll see how long that total lasts....I doubt very long. It's kinda funny all the guppies school together and kinda hang with each other.

Now the tank is all set back up and I just saw Squirt basking about 5 minutes ago. He loves his basking!

I'll post some pics of the newly arranged tank tomorrow... To lazy and tired to do it tonight.

thanks for reading

Friday, April 4, 2008

Siphoning the tank

I am talking about siphoning out poop that the filter does not pick up and other little annoying bits of "Turtle Sludge". I do this every few days and have accepted it as part of the routine now w/ turtle keeping. 

It does get annoying however, taking off the lights, and screen top, to get access to the tank water. I then drain the water into a 5 gallon bucket, picking up everything, and then put fresh water in. So it kinda doubles as a 10-15% water change at the same time while cleaning out "turtle sludge". 

Lately, I have been slacking off and haven't siphoned the tank in about a week.. Oops. But it's not like the water is dirty or anything, just some turtle sludge is building up on the bottom in the one corner where the filter does not reach. 

Oh yeah, this reminds me, I should clean my filter media this weekend. Guess I'll do that while I'm siphoning tomorrow. 

Feeder Guppies Part III

Squirt did end up eating 3 of the 4 guppies I put into the tank. The last one seems to be very evasive, and stays in the opposite corner from squirt at all times and he is way to fast to be caught (smart fish). However the little guppy is slowly getting bolder and going closer and closer to squirt(Dumb Fish). So it will just be a matter of days until I find that the guppy is no longer in there. 

Friday, March 28, 2008

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! 

Thursday, March 27, 2008

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. 


Wednesday, March 26, 2008

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.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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! 


Monday, March 24, 2008

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 .

Sunday, March 23, 2008

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. 

Friday, March 21, 2008

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! 






Thursday, March 20, 2008

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. 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

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.