Aquatic Plants, pH and a sleepy turtle.
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 6:49 pmMy turtle is acting weird. Quite lethargic and not her usually splashy food begging self. She's still eating but she hasn't been basking as much and I even saw her sleeping in the day, which I've never spotted before. I'm trying to work out why her behavior is changing. Physically she looks fine. Three things have changed in terms of her tank.
1) I added two real plants to my tank.
I've done a water test and all is fine apart from the pH being around 8.2. I've been doing some reading and found a few references to aquatic plants making the pH fluctuate to the point where it could be bad for the turtle. I will being doing more tests to see how the pH varies throughout the day to see if this is a problem. Two questions: why is a varying pH bad for the turtle, and would it cause general lethargy? Secondly, how do people manage to have tanks full of plants if they cause the pH to vary throughout the day?
2) I've moved house and her new tank position gets very little natural light in the day, this means she's in near darkness for longer than before.
I can only turn her lights on when I'm in the house (usually from 5pm - midnight on weekdays), could this bad lighting in the day be messing up her sleeping patterns?
3) I recently reversed the flow direction in her tank (input/output switch)
Any insights appreciated!
She's a map turtle, fx3 filter, 120L tank, basking area with heat bulb and uvb bulb.
1) I added two real plants to my tank.
I've done a water test and all is fine apart from the pH being around 8.2. I've been doing some reading and found a few references to aquatic plants making the pH fluctuate to the point where it could be bad for the turtle. I will being doing more tests to see how the pH varies throughout the day to see if this is a problem. Two questions: why is a varying pH bad for the turtle, and would it cause general lethargy? Secondly, how do people manage to have tanks full of plants if they cause the pH to vary throughout the day?
2) I've moved house and her new tank position gets very little natural light in the day, this means she's in near darkness for longer than before.
I can only turn her lights on when I'm in the house (usually from 5pm - midnight on weekdays), could this bad lighting in the day be messing up her sleeping patterns?
3) I recently reversed the flow direction in her tank (input/output switch)
Any insights appreciated!
She's a map turtle, fx3 filter, 120L tank, basking area with heat bulb and uvb bulb.