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Hi everyone!

Ive been lurking around the site and forum for a few months and have been meaning to register but just didnt get around too it. Ive enjoyed the site, very informative, and im looking forward to getting to know some of you.

I have two turtles. Tuck(i know i know) a 3-4" RES that ive had for about 6-8 months now and a Fred, a 2-3" map turtle that ive had for about 4 months.

Here is a pic of the habitat. You can see that tuck isnt camera shy at all!


Ignore the big gaping hole at the top. That will be the new home for a bearded dragon for my son, santa just hasn brought him yet

I can post pics of the turtle this weekend when i do tank maintanence

Welcome! Wow, very cool set-up...how did you do that? Can you post some more pics of it? And looking forward to seeing pics of your turtles!

Welcome!And I agree with meltedspork!Your set-up is AMAZING!I wish I had one like that!

Thanks for the compliments! The entire setup is DIY, some ideas i picked up from here and there, some are completely original. The background is great stuff brand foam coated with brown silicone with coco fibers adhered to it. I have 6 tiny pots with organic soil that house the plants embedded into the background. The tank overflows into a sump that i run filter media and carbon in and then returns to the tank via a penductor. The penductor acts as a powerhead to keep detritus from building up in the tank. The backpressure also allows me to T off of the return to feed a drip irrigation system for the plants thats controlled automatically with sprinkler timer. It works well, the turtle waste in the water is great food source for the plants. The dock is made out of the same material as the background but hollow and filled with sand so it doesnt float. For lighting im running 2 48" T12 fixtures($9 at lowes) with one UVB bulb and 3 different spectrum daylight bulbs. These are also automatically controlled by a timer. The best part is, the tank only cost me $59! I made it from one of these:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10011055

The entire setup cost me about $200 to make including the bulbs, heater, thermometer, and heat lamp. Some stuff i had lying around the house.
The dimensions are really nice 65" long and 17" wide. It provides a lot of swimming room for the turtles. The really seem to like it, the only problem im having is that i cant grow the duckweed faster than they can eat it

ill get some more pics up this weekend if i have time. You can see Tuck flexing for the camera in the bottom right hand corner of the tank. It gives you a little perspective as to how big the tank is.

your set up is amazing!!
how did you put it together?

how did you put it together?

im assuming you mean the conversion between the Detolf cabinet and the tank? obiously i dont use the door for the cabinet so the first thing i did was get rid of the door and shelves. i then drilled the ends of the cabinet which are made of wood for my drain and return line. i coated the wood with an aquacuture grade epoxy paint that i had lying around from another project. the glass is simply siliconed together with the epoxy end pieces. i also painted the bottom of the glass black and went barebottom.

the room that the tank is in is my four year old son's bedroom. I remodeled the entire room and put the wall up to divide the room and house the tanks. the otherside of the wall that you can see through above the turtle habitat is my computer room. i simply built a rough two tiered stand out of 2X4's to hold the RES tank and beardie tank. it also hides all of the equipment, thats what's so nice about in the wall tanks.

here is a link from my local reefclub forum with more pics of the room if your interested.

http://delreefclub.org/home/index.php?o ... opic=396.0

Your welcome!