Habitat - Outdoor :: Starting from scratch in NC

[RescueDogMom]

Due to a good friends passing, I have now become the owner of 12 red ear sliders...from 1/2 grown to plate sized, several koi and goldfish. His turtles live with the fish, and my fish from my small pond spent a month over there this summer when I had a water malfunction. The turtle did eat the slower fish when mine were sick from the water and slow (I did too much of a full change on water) but other than that never bother them..as the fish are all large.

I have a small outdoor pond with 20 or so goldfish (its about 4'X7' and 18" deep at the deepest point)
It isn't enclosed.
I am getting his liner, filter, etc..but his pond, while larger, isn't very deep...and the liner was cut to fit, so i can't expand it. I am really thinking to properly house them, i am going to have to find a home for a few...
I am going to enclose the pond area with 2' to 3' high privacy fence...with chicken wire buried at the base...
How large a pond am I going to need? I can get a stock tank but the liner looks so much better...and its in front of my house. I have never seen a raccoon or anything but bunnies around..not to say there arent...but i have alot of dogs that use the backyard..and most creatures stay clear. I have all these ideas..but its the middle of winter. The turtles are fine where they are...they have a screened in porch attached to the house which the pond is enclosed in.
Another problem is..they layed eggs this year which werent viable..there are males and females. I don't want any babies..so do i seperate...or is there another way? Take the eggs? My poor little sulcatta doesn't hold a candle to this magnitude! i just had to build her a turtle table..not dig a pond(well for now anyways) lol! I may be rambling...Its been a rough couple of days..I hope you guys get the point of what im asking....Thanks!

[marisa]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I want to give props to you for taking on this giant task... How many are close to the size of the largest one? If you're going to keep them all, you ideally need a large pond, or a relatively large pond and a stock tank(s). Exactly how big and how deep was the pond they were in? If you don't like the look of a stock tank, installing one in the ground is also a possibility depending on where you live (but a pond with a liner sounds easier). (What is the winter like where you are?)

Other than separating the sexes, taking the eggs would be the only other way to prevent the population from increasing.

I know you want to do the best for them and honor your friends memory, but if it seems like this is going to be too much for you to take on, caring for them while you find good homes for some would certainly be a reasonable alternative.

[SINI5T3R]

Sorry about the Friend, we recently had a death in the family too and it totally blows.

What I would suggest for you which has worked great for me is go to walmart, and get a actual pool. I baught a 600 gallon Plastic pool for 20$ for my 3. If i were you, I would get like...one of them large 100$ pools that are like 3 or 4 feet deep and like...2000 gallons or something and since you have a pond already im sure you have a good pump? or maybe the pool would come with a cleaner im not sure but ya, It would be cool as hell if you did and alll you would need for a basking area would be something big that floats like a few large pieces of cork bark or something along those lines, maybe some floating drift wood.

You can get BIG Pools cheap tho at walmart and it works out VERY nice and people alwasy trip out when they come over and see the turtles swimming around with all kinds of fish. and with a pool that size depending on where you live you usually never have to feed the fish OR the turtles because ALLLLLLLLL kinds of bugs fall into the water and those are eaten almost instantly by turtles and fish like mine do. I only have to change the water cuz it gets all algae'd up from the sun but you can buy a BIG thing of Cleaner from a pet store for like 30$ i think...it would be sick! If i had a big back yard id do it but right now my 600 gal pond is takin up a good lil thing of room