redearslider.com

Hello, I was wondering if the epoxy held up for the ramp on the basking spot?

yes absolutely it did. It's rock solid. If I ever had to build another ramp like this, epoxy would be my first choice.

Thank you! I'm having something similar done for my turtle. Your build is great.

Updated planted tank shot:

I have some hair algae growing on the right driftwood. I leave it there for the SAE to eat.

Awesome work.

You should go into business doing this. I know nothing about tools and would love to hire someone like you when I upgrade my tank. Very nice work!

I love this thread! Your information has been amazing, and helped me to decide on the updates to my RES's tank. I love you're handy work, and you're attention to detail is impressive.

I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for more information on the float system you're using for maintaining your water level, and any other important details to this kind of system.

Thank you for your inspiration, and hopefully I'll be able to contribute in return!

Thank you for the kind words. There are many options for a float system or auto top off as they are called.

JBJ makes their ATO, you can integrate one with an aquarium controller or Tunze makes a very good one as well.

Some links that may help you:
http://www.jbjlighting.com/prod-ato.html
http://www.tunze.com/149.html?&L=1&C=GB ... oxunter036
http://www.digitalaquatics.com/saltwater/RKL

WOW that Aquatic digital interface tool is amazing.

Bless God your son! Good work!

Holy cow it's been almost 4 years since my last update on this thread.

Personal update:
I haven't been around much. After having our second son my wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer. :/ Much of my time has been spent taking care of the family + work and less free time for here. After 9 months of chemo my wife was doing OK, completely drained but OK. We had a new house built and had to obviously move & re-setup the turtle habitat in January of 2016. Middle of 2016 her cancer came back. She's currently fighting it and making good progress. I sit here in the hospital today next to her while she's getting a round of chemo posting this. I had some major tank updates to share....


Turtle Habitat Update:
When we moved to the new house, I had to leave behind the in-wall tank seen earlier in this thread. The realtor advertised it as a "feature". What I did was swap my 75G regular tank that WAS being used for the turtle for the 75G reef ready tank and left behind a regular 75G tank in the wall. I took the sump and all of the equipment with to the new house and am using it for Yes that's right me the "don't use a sump on a turtle tank" guy is using a sump on his turtle tank. Everything previously said still holds true. The sump is capable of keeping the water cycled, clean, clear and no-smell. However because a sump requires an overflow, the detritus and turtle waste are not skimmed off the water column and remain in the bottom of the display tank. I have added an Eheim vacuum to my collection of crap to periodically remove the gunk from the bottom of the tank.



Occasionally the Eheim vac will not suck the gunk up so I'll pull out the Python hose and use that. More of a headache having to attach it to a sink etc.

So for the past year+ the turtle setup was in the kids' playroom filtered by a sump to which we had to manually top off every couple of days. In full disclosure when my wife got sick again middle of 2016, Moe wasn't receiving the best care or attention. I tasked the boys with filling a pail of water to put in the sump for top off when water got low. That worked for about 2 weeks.

This past fall we had a bit of a tank mishap. The water in the sump ran low so the return pump was water starved and making a lot of noise. I was running late for a call and to kill the noise I shut the system off from the controller. Poof power off, noise gone, take a phone call, fix the tank later. I got distracted and ended up leaving the tank off for a couple of days. Upon returning home one night there was this awful burning smell in the house. [!!!]?

I discovered the source of the smell was Moe's tank. I apparently put the system in "standby" instead of shutting it down. In standby the outlet that controls the return pump was shut off. The heater was not. The temperature probe that controls the heater is in the overflow. As temperature dropped in the tank, the controller turned the heater on. The heater boiled the little bit of water that was left in the third section of the sump and then the 500W heater burned up itself and was smoking. Thankfully I caught it in time before it caused a fire. I think we were really close.

After much cussing I filled the sump back up and Amazon brought me a new heater. I ordered the exact same Finnex titanium heater. It's a FANTASTIC heater... the previous failure was 100% my fault and my neglect. To my surprise the the heater now comes with a heater guard.

So sorry to hear about your wife. I hope she will be doing much better shortly.

As for Moe, glad there was no house fire and you were able to replace everything.

Wow man I hope all goes well! Glad the house didn't burn down! Take care

Give my best to Heather. I'm very glad to hear about her progress and I know you and the boys are on your best behavior

Eheim Vac and Finnex heater... gotta add those to my wish list. Good luck with everything!

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

Heather wanted the tank moved out of the playroom and into the loft where it was more visible. Thankfully with the new house having carpet upstairs I put some of those plastic furniture slider thingies under the stand. It was still a pain to move but not impossible. The spot she picked in the loft was on a wall against the laundry room. Boom! That's what i needed - easy access to water and a drain.



So I gained easy access to water and a drain but I also gained direct sunlight via a window on the right side of the tank. Boo. Guess I'll be ordering more plantation shutters soon. You can see the morning glare in the above photo. I'm not sure why the forum is rotating the photos. ??

Like the planted tank in the previous house, I plumbed the incoming cold water line via a 1/4" polyethylene tubing to a solenoid then to a BRS dual canister filled with charcoal to filter out chlorine / chloramine before topping off the tank. The float switch on the sump activates the outlet on my controller where the solenoid is plugged in. When energized, the solenoid opens the valve and incoming top off water flows. When the float switch rises to the set height, it stops the flow of water by turning off power to the solenoid.

Coming off the cold water supply line for the laundry faucet, Watts makes this all in one valve with 1/4" quick connect. It's a Watts LFP-467CS. I found it at the local big box hardware store for $12.


Here's the solenoid. It was a $15 purchase on ebay a couple of years ago and got moved from old house to new.


Here's the bulk reef supply dual reactor that I've filled with carbon for incoming water