Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: New User - I introduce you all to Optimus. HELLO!!

[William115]

Besides not having any gravel at all, what would be another substitute. I'm not looking to having sand either.

I like having gravel at the bottom of my turtles' tank and I had it for months with a previous pair of turtles until I noticed them eating it. It didn't bother them, but I did notice after I took the gravel out, that they were pooping gravel for weeks afterwards.

I bought a bag of River Pebbles from Lowes for like $3.50. The River Pebbles are larger than regular aquarium gravel and too big from them to eat. However, there can be smaller pebbles that could be a problem, so I had to hand pick all the good sized pebbles. Once our 2 RES hatchlings outgrow their tank, they'll be in the pond with our Yellow Bellied Slider. The indoor pond has nothing at the bottom, the outside pond has sand.

-Michael

I will look into setting up his tank with bigger rocks next water change, just to be 100% sure he won't eat any of the gravel. Maybe the sand too, but the larger rocks will be the first thing. Also since I have the under gravel filter plate that evenly sucks water into the filter, what would be a good method to have even suction throughout the tank? Instead of just one location.

[vear]

Hi! Welcome to the forum!! Love your turtle and love your gecko!! I don't like to use loose substrate for geckos because there have been reported cases of impaction - I use tile. And yeah, leo's usually go in one particular spot, I actually have a "potty" for my leo to go on - I just take it out everyday and dump the waste =)

For your turtle substrate, you can use playsand from homedepot/lowes. There's a sticky on the forum about sand that tells you all you need to know.

Thanks for the pictures!!

[William115]

Hello and thank you. Leopard Gecko's are awesome!! I had sand for my gecko, but after a while it got smelly. His feces look normal and fairly large too lol. When he does go after a cricket, he is pretty accurate and doesn't catch any of the substrate in his mouth. I have been concerned about him swallowing to much sand, but I keep an eye on him during feeding time.

However for Optimus I will be removing the rocks and have no gravel at all for now. Eventually I will try the sand with some big river rocks for him to push around and such.

I will post up pictures of his new setup when it is finished in a different thread.

Thanks.

[Gracie Turts]

i like it.

[PridgNYC]

Sand actually makes it easier to maintain water quality. Pool Filter Sand is the best, requires almost no washing, has a consistent grain size and is inexpensive, about ten dollars per fifty pound bag. The pool filter sand is heavy enough not to fly around the tank and dense enough that the poop just sits on top or migrates toward the filter intake. It doesn't require much, if any, cleaning after putting in the tank, and provides a lot of surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize.

[VeipaCray]

hello and welcome.

+1 to PridgeNYC's post.