Habitat - Outdoor :: Planning my outdoor pond.

[bluedragoon85]

Hi,

It's been a while since I have appeared on this forum, but I once again come to seek advice from the professionals ^^ I have been wanting to set up a small pond outside for both of my turtles. They are currently about 2 1/2 inches in shell length and I have them inside a 50 gallon Rubbermaid container. I was thinking of setting up a preformed pond outside at first, but I have opted not to because I don't have much space to work with; it seems the bigger the pond the longer the width and length get, but not the depth(as much). I really can't make my pond any bigger than 4 ft x 5 ft. So I was thinking of building a pond (with pond liner) at about 4 ft width, 5 ft length and 2 1/2 f (maybe 3) deep. I have been looking at some kits and wanted to see what you all thought? Would something like this be good, or more like this? I'm really clueless since I have never done something like this before. Any help will be greatly appreciated

[steve]

Hi bluedragoon85, are you thinking that will be a permanent home? Outside the 4x5 area, will there be land accessible to them?

[Terryo]

I had a 60 gal pre formed and kept an Eastern Painted and a Southern Painted in it. Just make sure that you have a VERY good filtration system. Turtles are very dirty compared to fish.
My son also has a 60 gal preformed and keeps 1 Yellow belly slider in it. They are really too small to hibernate anything but frogs in them, but if you can put a land area around it, you just loosen up the dirt and add a lot of leaf litter and they can hibernate in there. If you want them to hibernate in the pond, you have to have something on the bottom for them to dig into...like mud. This makes the pond so hard to keep clean when it is that small. The land area is a much better idea.

[bluedragoon85]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies ^^ I have been investigating, and I stopped at home depot last week and saw this pond. I'm starting to reconsider the preformed pond approach as this 125 gallon pond seems perfect. It is a bit big, but I was measuring outside and it seems I can pull it of. I guess my biggest concern would be filtration. I don't have much of a budget and I would prefer to just make a filter out of a bucket and filling it with media. Does anybody have any suggestions or tutorials/links that could aid me in this process (making a filter)?

Replying to Steve: I would like to make it their permanent enclosure if I can manage to install a 100+ gallon pond outside. Otherwise I would just leave them in there till they outgrow it, in which case I would probably have to opt for a stock tank later on. Also, I was thinking of placing some rocks on the plant shelf so the turtles could bask in the sun, and maybe later on when they grow up make some land accessible to them.

BTW: That's a beautiful pond Terryo I bet your turtle loves it! I wish I could have one filled with plants like that, but my turtles tend to rip apart any plants I place in their enclosure =/.




This is where I currently have my turtles:



Right behind the enclosure is where I would like to place the pond in the future:



We get a lot of shade because of the trees and we are surrounded by buildings, but this spot gets the most sun light as it is right in the middle of the yard; it would be the perfect spot.

[Linus]

I'm sure your turtles will be happy in the land behind. You could fit probably a 125 G preformed in their, and maybe 300 G liner.

[bluedragoon85]

I'm sure your turtles will be happy in the land behind. You could fit probably a 125 G preformed in their, and maybe 300 G liner.

Yeah, I would really like that I'm seriously thinking the 125 G I previously posted, especially since it only has one plant shelf, so they have more deep end space to swim freely. I could fit a bigger pond, but the small palm tree limits the space a bit more, but I'm pretty sure I can manage to fit a 125 G preformed like you say.

[bluedragoon85]

Finally was able to get a 1/2 decent picture of my turtles. The turtle that is basking seems to be shedding his shell. They are very shy to people, I had to take this picture from the roof, and even then they got scared once they saw me...

[bluedragoon85]

I finally turned words into actions. I stopped by at Home Depot, and lucky enough they still had the 125 G pond I wanted (only 1 left). Once I came back, I decided to dig the whole for the pond. It was not easy at all. We used to have a tree there, so the roots and tree stub was still there, but after banging it with a pike or whatever you call it, I managed to get most of it out.

I haven't filled the sides or bottom with sand yet, I will do that tomorrow. This is just a pic to give you guys an idea of what it will look like

[bluedragoon85]

Here's an update on my small pond. It took forever to level it, but I got pretty it leveled for the most part. Here are a few pics:

It looks really ugly right now, but I'm gonna stop and get some rocks later today and place them around the pond. I am also gonna stack rocks where I currently have a bucket and rock for a basking spot, to give it a more natural look. Later on i'm gonna plant some plants around it and try to get the grass to grow back Turtles really seem to like the pond. All they do is swim around and explore there new surroundings.

[bluedragoon85]

at last! I am done! Aside from getting the surrounding area more green and nice, I pretty much a done setting up my 125 G pond.

I got a lot of rocks from behind my girl friends house and hauled over to my place, I believe they make the pond look much nicer and kinda natural look.
Overall I'm pretty pleased, and I believe the turtles are as well. All I can say, the hardest part was definitely getting the pond leveled, especially since my yard is a bit slanted, so it was a challenge.

Here are a few pics:







Here's the basking area. I actually placed a plactic plant pot under the 2 big rocks and just put rocks around it to hide it. I plan on placing a little more rocks on the back to make it a bit nicer. Doesn't look very accessible in the picture, but it really is, the water is up to the top rock.