Habitat - Indoor :: Tank Size, Does it Equal Amount of Water?

[Crazy Girl Turtle]

Hi there. Okay, I am planning to buy Tanga her big tank tomorrow, but just realized that the stand we have only holds 800 pounds. My initial thought was we would get a 120 gallon tank (she is only 1.5 inches now, but I am hoping this will last a long time!), but I didn't think I would fill it all the way with water. I was thinking, more like 75 - 80 gallons of water.

I recently looked at a bunch of photos on here and it seems most people keep the aquariums almost full. For right now we wouldn't fill it up all the way anyway b/c she is so tiny (so I am not really worried about the stand, i.e., 800 pounds includes the water and the aquarium, for some reason I didn't do that math originally when we bought the stand!)), but wondered:

If she needs 10 gallon tank size per inch, is that actual tank size or amount of water?

[scripta_elegans]

I'd say water, as it's sort of the minimum that a turtle needs. Water weighs a little over 8 pounds a gallon, 8.34, so you probably don't want to go over a 90 gallon tank at the very most. Even with the 90, you wouldn't want to fill it to the top. You also need to look at the dimensions of the stand, because you don't want any part of the tank hanging over the stand. If the stand is 48 inches long, by 20 inches wide, you need to be sure the aquarium is 48 inches or less, and 20 inches wide or less. That will last for quite awhile. It might last a lifetime if you have a boy, and if it's a girl, it should still be good forat least 5 years, and probably more.

[DavidY]

I would tend to think that the 10gal per inch rule is a general guideline for the size of aquarium to get based on standard aquarium dimensions. Usually most people would recommend a 40gal tank for a 4" turtle. You would want to make sure the water level is low enough so the turtle can't escape so you'd probably fill it to within 4" of the top. That would be about 75% full which would equate to about 30gal of water.

[grey goose]

I have exactly 68 gallons of water in my 90 gallon tank (I measured it, I'm sooo anal) filled 6 inches from the top.

[DavidY]

You're a true scientist Goose!

[industrial_girl_2000]

I have about 60 gallons of water in my 90-gal size tank. I have to keep the water level a little lower so that Sheba doesn't climb out of the tank (I like to keep the top of her tank open so she gets lots of air circulation).

If you have a cover on the tank, you can increase the water level since there is no danger of them getting out.

[SpotsMama]

The measure is for tank size rather than gallons of water. Here's a handy dandy tank size calculator:

http://www.redearslider.com/calculator.html