Habitat - Indoor :: Squirts New Tank

[starscollided]

so i got squirt a 40gal breeder tank with all the fixings - he seems much happier out of the little 10 gallon. Iv decided im going to get fake plants because he destroyed and ate just about every leaf on the plant that i put in there within a few days. (He refuses to eat lettuce but he will eat about any plant i put in there *all turtle safe of course*) Here are some pictures.
note: the bare plant and the leaves at the top of the tank
The screen is reinforced where my cat (Mudd) sits - i cant stop her from getting up there when i am not home so i gave up and made the screen cat-proof
Squirt has gotten used to her and will bask with her up there



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Hes a bit blurry in this one because he was wiggling back and forth for some food

[starscollided]

and i do have a digital thermometer for the water i just like to keep that one in there for quick refrence

[BullDog]

Cute cat! ^_^
Looks nice. A couple comments though: The amount of UVB that can penetrate a screen with less than 1/2" spaces is greatly reduced. Your turtle is probably getting very little benefit from the light. However, if you take him outside frequently, it'll be OK.

Also, be careful with the glass thermometer. They can easily break, especially since it's surrounded by rocks, and your turt may eat the small sinkers in the bottom. It's not mercury, but it could be something like lead. Keep a very close eye on it, and if your turt seems to knock it around a lot, I would remove it all together. I use the stick-on thermometers on the outside of the tank for quick ref (in addition to the digital). Overall, mine have been very accurate, but once and a while you get a lemon...

[TheComputerGremlin]

How did you reinforce the screen where the cat sits? I have almost the same setup as you do, and I'm forced to have the screen (which I know is blocking out UVB) on there because I have dumb cats too. I've got foil up there to stop them, but when we went away for a weekend, I found paw prints on the foil. I'd like to cut out portions of the screen where the light sits over, but I figure if I damage the screen any further, the cats will break it and electrocute the turtle, and probably the cats.

Oh, and for quick reference, use one of those stick on thermometers. They are pretty accurate, esp after you figure out how far off they are from your digital one. Just a couple weeks ago, someone's turtle chomped open one and ate some of the lead pellets inside. Yuck!

[Landon&Misti]

Awsome Tank!

[starscollided]

How did you reinforce the screen where the cat sits? I have almost the same setup as you do, and I'm forced to have the screen (which I know is blocking out UVB) on there because I have dumb cats too. I've got foil up there to stop them, but when we went away for a weekend, I found paw prints on the foil. I'd like to cut out portions of the screen where the light sits over, but I figure if I damage the screen any further, the cats will break it and electrocute the turtle, and probably the cats.

I cut out a small portion (half the size of the basking area-ish) of my screen along the very edge of the screen above the basking area - - This way if hes basking he may get a bit more UV - - I also figure it this way it may be 30%less but my brother had reptiles with the same kind of mesh that needed just as much UV and they lived a very long time - so it cant be THAT bad - PLUS you do what you need to do under the conditions - im not doing it because i want to but because the cat situation i have to.

well my cat is really small (she never got very big just alot of fur to her) so she weighs next to nothing - idk how much because my home scale doesn't even detect that she is on it. However unless your cat is HUGE the metal mesh actually holds up pretty well under stress (if you have the same kind i do)
To reinforce it i just took the metal edges from an old screen i had and cut them to size and put them diag. across the corner so she really isnt sitting on the screen so much. (i epoxied them down * away from the turtle*) its almost like a kitty basking site - She only sits on that one corner- So her weight gets distributed across these bars onto the edges of the screen and not so much Down onto it directly. I dropped my camera in the lake today while fishing (oops!) but heres my best shot in 3 min with MS paint.

She doesn't exert enough force in any one given spot when she lays down to collapse the screen but the bars help when she is sitting on her back paws looking down

i apologize for my -lack of paint skills-

[TheComputerGremlin]

Yeah, my cats are huge, almost 15 pounds each. So far we're surviving, but I'm thinking about putting a piece of plexiglass over the area they've been on ...

Oh, and to weigh your cat, weigh yourself and then grab your cat and weigh both of you together. That should give you a more accurate number since bathroom scales are set for larger weights.

[starscollided]

yeah so my cat weighs 8lbs

[TheComputerGremlin]

Aww, I love the tiny cats!! My cats are uber, but not fat, just uber ... My cousin has a tiny little cat, she just never grew beyond like 7 or 8 pounds, and my boss has this little persian who looks huge because of the fuzz, but when you pick her up, she's got to be like 6 pounds.

[BullDog]

Neat idea for the cat!
Would never hold up under my cat though. He weights about 17 lbs (down from 18 ).
Fortunately, he hasn't taken any interest in the turtles...

[Take-One]

I have a 2 month old kitten. She already thinks turtles are food. She always is watching.

[Turtle_Power]

With the screen, I reccomend to cut it a bit smaller, maybe an inch less than the light fixture. It can provide the needed UV rays. Just try to make sure that most of the light comes through