Habitat - Indoor :: Turtle Dock situation

[kmichael55]

You may not see him eating it, but you aren't watching him all the time. It's very dangerous, so please consider removing it.

[Jess+skittles]

i know im not watching him all the time but what am i supposed to do with it? i spent alot of money on these rocks (25 lb bag) and i cant just keep them for a future fish tank. maybe i'll just give it to my mom for her hermit crabs... any other ideas so skittles doesnt undo the suction cups for the trees from the floor?

[kmichael55]

ha, no that's just skittles redecorating , the way i see it, it's better to have a safe and healthy turtle than to have your tank look pretty... all of the plastic plants in my tank are floating now since i've given up on fixing them once my turtles move them. When I first started my tank, the guys at petsmart told me to buy calcium sand for the bottom, which was never meant to be used under water. I figured, oh well if they eat the sand they'll be getting calcium. But, it mucked up the water really badly (all of the calcium dust never settled) and it was a lot larger than regular sand so I was worried about them becoming impacted. I also used it in my feeder fish tank and 5 of them died within two days of putting in the sand. So, I figured this is bad for my little turtles and ended up throwing away $20 worth of sand I had bought. It's a shame, but I'd rather waste some money than potentially cause my turtles harm. It's like if you bought food for them that was poisonous but didn't want to get rid of it because it was expensive, you know?

[Jess+skittles]

hi,
i was about to ask about sand but never mind haha... hmm i'll just stick with the trees then ( it holds the turtle dock in one spot for now) i took some pics.. how did u make it ur avatar ( the profile page wasnt clear) maybe some day i'll get huge rocks for gravel ( like my driveway) i'm just worried cuz i thought they would need traction of some sort on the bottom thats all. h never undone the trees till this morning when one came undone. i'll wait till he stops growing and get a big beautiful tank (or indoor pond/stock tank)

[kmichael55]

Big rocks are fine, you don't need to cover the bottom, unless you want to... just make sure he can't get his little feet stuck between two rocks.

I just found a pic on the internet that was smaller than 80 x 80 pixels, if you right click on the picture and click properties, it will give you the internet address for the picture. Copy and paste this into the avatar section of the profile page. (The properties page will also tell you how big the image is)

[kmichael55]

try to resize that image, it makes the forum a little hard to read! open it in a picture editing program and resize from there

[N4784N R4613]

i checked out the big tanks... the only thing i dont like about them is that they r made to be soooo long!! if it was more square ok fine but it seemed like it had the width of a 15 gal and the length is god knows what!! jeeze

If you live anywhere near Bowling Green, Columbus, or Cincinnati, OH., then you can get a a cheap tank from www.glasscages.com, and pay a small fee to have it taken to one of those citys. The best thing is they make tanks in all different sizes. Anything from 1/2 gal., to 640 gal.!!!

Check it out...
http://glasscages.com/?sAction=ViewCat&lCatID=2

[Jess+skittles]

thanks but im not from around there... i go to u of akron and im near ashtabula at the moment

[kmichael55]

oh ok, thats cool

[DavidY]

You can use some of that gravel as a top layer in potted house plants if you have any. They look decorative and will prevent any of those stupid little flying gnats or whatever from breeding in the moist dirt. They are also good to use as drainage in the bottom of house plant pots too (use some bigger pebbles to cover the drain holes then add a layer of aquarium gravel then dirt).

For the turtle's tank, a lot of us use smooth river rocks that you can get at the pet store or a crafts store or at Lowes. You only need a few to make it look nice. If you use too many, it will trap the turtle's waste and turn into a septic tank.

Also for plants, Petco sells some aquarium decorations with plastic plants firmly attached to them. The decoration helps keep the plants weighted down in the water and they look pretty good too.

Tenodera: most likely you're already aware that aquatic turtles like RES and painteds live in ponds with deep muddy bottoms where they can hide from predators, cool off in the hot weather, and hibernate in the winter. The muddy bottom is a major part of their habitat. I would guess that they probably rarely see gravel like that and in such quantities. And in the wild they have so many more varieties of things to eat and keep them entertained that any gravel/pebbles they do find probably wouldn't seem as interesting.

[RunninWideOpen]

I wouldn't take the chance still. Crush never ate it until one day I caught her going after some. You never know when they'll decide to. He may already be doing it and you just don't know it.