Habitat - Indoor :: My 240 liter setup - picture !

[WB2]

Hey everyone !

This is my first attempt at building a nice turtle habitat in my 240 liter tank (+/- 60 gallons).
I used white sand at the bottom, a EHEIM classic 250 canister filter, a 150W heater, exo terra Basking lamp (heat + UVA + UVB) + some fake plants...

I still need to find some rocks to put the basking island/platform on because it was too low compared to the water level... .for the moment it's resting on a glass salad-bowl which i turned around

Some questions i still have -

* When i just filled the aquarium, the water was quite cloudy (white-ish)... i thought it was the sand that wasn't settled yet, but after 25 hours, it's still more or less the same... any idea why ?
* Would this tank be big enough to hold 3 RES or rather stick to 2 ?
* the output of my cannister filter makes quite a lot of nice (its concealed in the plants hanging)... could i have the output submerged in the water, or would it be better to keep it above water level ?

Many thanks for your tips, comments !

[Sir Max]

Looks awesome.

[steve]

Looks great!

The cloudiness is probably from the tank starring to cycle. It's a normal process.

RES need about 10 gallons of tank per inch of shell. So a 5" RES should be in a 50 gallon tank.

I'd try to keep the output just above the surface so it can break it otherwise you'll have oil/protein slicks.

[Kansasslider]

You have a 60 gallon tank with 25 gallons of water? If you were to add more water your turtles will have more room to swim. As for the water noise you can put the outlet under water and add a maxi-jet to the tank just direct its flow toward the surface to agitate the water.As far as that goes you could do the same thing with the outflow from your canister filter. Looks like your on the right track.I just don't like to see tanks with such little space being utilized .

[Drewet88]

Nice set up. Like kansasslider said you could always add more water and maybe even look into an Above Tank Basking Area. I wish I would've learned about ATBA sooner and this forum has a lot of tutorials with pictures and great instructions on how to build your own. I made two separate ones way bigger than needed for about $30 and that includes all the extra stuff I bought that day so the ATBA was probable closer to $20.
What size is your turtle?
Like Steve said 10 gallons of water per 1 inch of shell for the 1st turtle and add an additional 5 gallons for every 1 inch of shell for any other turtles. So at 60 gallons even filled all the way up it wouldn't hold an adult slider comfortably let alone 2.

[WB2]

Hey thanks all for your replies...
They are still tiny hatchlings... so i kept the water level quite low for the moment but will gradually increase when they grow... and eventually i will build the ATBA

[Kansasslider]

Keep up the good work. Enjoy they are a lot of fun.