Habitat - Indoor :: Sand FAQ

Turtle tank setups and other indoor configurations.

Post Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:26 pm   Re: Sand FAQ

Adamsv7 wrote:Moving my RES to a new tank and considering using sand for the first time instead of a no substrate bottom. Also going to be adding some fish to the tank as well which require some sort of substrate. Is sand my best bet? I've tried larger rocks in the past but it was way too much of a hassle and made for a dirty bottom with how messy RES tend to be.


I enjoyed sand for the look, but found a bare bottom to be much easier to clean. You can use a siphon to clean the sand, but it's obviously time consuming. Just pick up as much as you can before you suck up sand. FYI, I have fish with my turtles, who are also about a year and a half year old, and they get along with the fish well. The fish don't really mind there being no substrate. Just make sure to not overfeed.
rambologic
 
Posts: 115
Joined: Aug 2, 2017
Gender: Male

Post Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:18 pm   Re: Sand FAQ

litefoot wrote:I have been using river rocks for decade with no problem cleaning that is when I stopped using those store bought ones. Gravity ones ( siphons ) to weak , even some with small pumps are weak. I make my own with a good pump and strainer and it pulls everything out the rocks , everything !

Sand is nice and you will use a sand sifter more than a vacuum to clean it. I recommend pool filter sand as the best ( silica sand ) and is cleaner to wash than construction sand which takes forever to clean.

Fish always in turtle tank ... free turtle food and then you will have more waste from them and any uneaten fish food. More bio load , if you have 10 gallons per 1" of turtle shell maybe a couple fish but there is no guarantee your turtle will make friends with them. More like food. When Piggley was 3" he was able to catch my 6" shubunkin's , and they are fast , so a separate tank for them.


Do you recommend any certain species that may have more of a chance surviving?
User avatar
Adamsv7
 
Posts: 34
Joined: Jan 22, 2017
Location: Long Beach, NY
Gender: Male

Post Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:04 pm   Re: Sand FAQ

If you have a lot of plants and hiding spots anything may make it ? Truly anything fast will last longer. Shubunkin's are one of the fastest goldfish out there and Piggley got them. Rosy red minnows are sleek and fast and they go to. Bottom line lets say nothing expensive ! Over my decades I did have turtles make friend with fish but not many.
litefoot
 
Posts: 1647
Joined: Nov 7, 2016
Location: New Orleans
Gender: Male

Post Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:54 am   Re: Sand FAQ

I have one rosy red in there now that has latest for weeks. I thought he would go like his other 3 friends but now I find my RES just swimming around with him like they're best buds. I even went to my LPS to grab him some fish food because it looks like he's gonna be around for the long run..
User avatar
Adamsv7
 
Posts: 34
Joined: Jan 22, 2017
Location: Long Beach, NY
Gender: Male

Post Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:41 am   Re: Sand FAQ

Holy Moses I found an asweaome way to add sand!!! Found it on YouTube, he says he doesn’t even rinse it. I found this AFTER rinsing my black sand for a while. It sucked, my nailbeds are tore up, and the water was black. My tub is black, haha. Basically you put your sand in an empty CLEAN juice bottle, submerge it in the tank to fill with water, turn upside down and as the sand comes out the sooty water sucks up in the bottle. When the sand is all out, Flip said bottle upright and dump it out. It totally works! The water I was dumping was sooo dirty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta6ZI5Or814
Attachments
040F7E1C-52C9-47D8-BD87-C0DF711C0EB2.jpeg
Water immediately after putting in half-rinsed sand.
040F7E1C-52C9-47D8-BD87-C0DF711C0EB2.jpeg (43.23 KiB) Viewed 25379 times
Sealya617
 
Posts: 31
Joined: Jan 30, 2018
Gender: Female

Previous

Return to Habitat - Indoor

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 12 guests