Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: Hi Everybody... Checking out my Turtle Cam!

[Ranger The Red Ear Slider]

The pet store i go to has a bare bottom tank for their turtles

[MaggyCheco]

Woah that's pretty really really cool. I'm only a college kid but I'll definitely do something like this when I have a career xD

[ElTonyO]

Thanks. I think pet cams are kinda cool. It's a way of always being there, where ever you are!

[Spike 7.62]

I hate to break it to you, but turtles can only breathe air. They have lungs like us and can't respirate under water, they just hold their breath. Welcome to the forum and cool website though, I would consider doing something like this if I had the resources.

-Spike

[2turtlvr]

Does he look "Happy?"

http://home.comcast.net/~eltonyo/turtle.html

How do you set up something like that. I dont want a turtle cam forever, but we just built an AGBA and I want to see if they're using it. They seem to avoid it when we're home, probably because it's new. But a camera would let me know they're using it or if we need to make adjustments.

Thanks

[steve]

You can leave a little food up there and check to see if its gone. You might need to lead them up there once or twice first

[Mrz Mathis]

How neat!

[ElTonyO]

In regards to answering the question about how to set up video camera's, its pretty easy... but then again, I am an engineer (computer geek). You need to first buy some hardware called a Network Camera (or IP Camera).  Go to www.axis.com, and click on network camera's for a good selection.  I use the Axis 207, but there are many other varieties made by other manufactures.  If you have a Macintosh, I would especially recommend AXIS camera's.

They come in many flavors and types.  You can get fancy high def network camera with motion detection and manual controls (they can get pricey!),or for a basic pet cam, a lower end network camera like the AXIS 207 works well.  You can buy wireless network camera's (you can tell because these have the little antenna's on the side), or the cheaper network camera's that you have to wire (via a ethernet cable), into your wireless router (if you have that luxury).  You pay more for the wireless camera's, but they are more flexible (though the resolution may suffer a bit).  I have my router next to the turtle tank (and my router has spare ethernet inputs), so I just plugged my two cameras into my router, and then configured their IP addresses on my computer.

The user manual tells you how to get your own unique IP address for your network camera which is basically a mini server.  From there, you can customize your own web page (like I did), or use the simple software tools that come with the camera's to build your web page, to display your camera image(s).

This all probably sounds like a bunch of gobble-de-gook if your not into this stuff, but its not all that hard to figure out.

[ballyhoo]

I wanted to pop in about sand.....
all of my tanks have sand bottoms. 55 gallon, 30 Long, and a 10 gallon. The best sand that I found for the best price was Kwik Krete play sand. I got 2 bags for under 15$ and it was plenty for all of my tanks. Only thing you have to do is rinse it well. The sand will not bother the filter as long as you have the intake at least an inch off the substrate. I have a magnum 350 canister filter and have never had an issue.