Habitat - Outdoor

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and I am looking for some ideas on what to do on my situation.

I currently have 5 RES. I have 2 that are probably around 1 year old, 2 that are probably around 5 months old, and another one I just adopted (owner couldn't take care of it anymore) that is probably around 9 months old, so all pretty young.

I have the 2 baby ones in a small 5 gallon tank. they are both less than 1 1/2 inch in lenght.
I have the other 3 larger ones in an 80 gallon tank. Largest is almost 5 inches, middle is almost 4 inches, and the smaller one is about 3 inches.

I had them all indoors, however because I live in Guatemala City the weather is nice all year long, so I decided to take the tanks outside. I was treating my 3 inch turtle for fungus as she rarely basked (she is basking now). However I am running into the following issues:

-Glass I believe can warm up a lot. Weather can get as high as 82F/28C so it's not like they will boil and make turtle soup, but want to double check.
-Water is getting very murky now. In a week the water will get very green I assume from Algae forming because of the sun?
-basking area too small. I did not plan for this tank to be outdoors so in the little time I've had it outside I have put a bit of cardboard to protect their feet from the glass (used to have heat/UV lamp indoor) but I will need to find a long term solution.
-tank too small. Once the turtles grow a bit more, they will begin fighting (they push each other sometimes on the basking area already).

Any suggestions on how to improve my situation? I am attaching pics of the tanks I have and the backyard I could potentially use to build an outdoor pond.

A very straightforward approach would be a stock tank of some sort. The larger the setup, the less maintenance in my opinion. And even though the air temp is 82F, it will get much hotter if any sunlight reaches it. It also causes a lot of the algae problems you're seeing. Are these the only tanks you have? You use for them indoors as well?

steve wrote:A very straightforward approach would be a stock tank of some sort. The larger the setup, the less maintenance in my opinion. And even though the air temp is 82F, it will get much hotter if any sunlight reaches it. It also causes a lot of the algae problems you're seeing. Are these the only tanks you have? You use for them indoors as well?

thanks, yes these are the only tanks I have. I used them for indoors, but now placed them outdoors only. 82F is only for an hour or so, it's very windy here and cools down pretty fast, it's around 70F right now, temps are usually 63F-82F all year long

You have a nice amount of space, so you do have a lot of options. It's still a bit tricky as you don't know how they will all get a long. It's unfortunate how aggression can multiply the amount of work you need to do.

yeah for example Tortu and Manchitas were about the same size when I got them. But Tortu is an Alpha so she was hoarding all food for herself, and it got to a point where the bullying was so bad Manchitas was only ever found in the basking area. Tortu is now almost twice the size of Manchitas. The behavior changed when I got the larger tank and they started tolerating each other again.

But yeah so many variables

Males are also know to become more aggressive as they get older, I would say it should definitely be expected. Also have heard stories where turtles kept together in small spaces for most of their lives will become aggressive once moved to a larger setup. So, I would say hope for the best but be prepared to separate them on short notice.

steve wrote:Males are also know to become more aggressive as they get older, I would say it should definitely be expected. Also have heard stories where turtles kept together in small spaces for most of their lives will become aggressive once moved to a larger setup. So, I would say hope for the best but be prepared to separate them on short notice.

The opposite happened to me, as soon as I placed them in a larger tank the fighting stopped

I wish that was always the result, but I think the main lesson I learned is that you can not predict how they will behave.

Habitat - Outdoor :: Help needed! need to find a way to make this work

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