Habitat - Indoor :: Moving the tanks!

[grem89]

So I decided I'm moving my 55 gallon out of my bedroom in my apartment, to the hallway just as you walk in the front door. Im also moving my girlfriends 39 gallon there as well. I made two stand out of some 4x4s, 2x10s, and 2x4s. They are a bit overkill but look great and are sturdy as anything. (can support a 225 lb man jumping up and down on top of them). We both have RES and we wanted to put the tanks next to each other. I built an atba which will span both tanks so the turts will be sharing it! I have yet to decided if i want to section off the ATBA in half to keep them separated or let them free roam from tank to tank. We have put them together a couple times, once for about a month and another time for a few days and haven't looked to be aggressive so I'm still deciding on what to do with that. But here are some pics of the progress. Enjoy!

Here's a shot looking down the hallway. (the 39 in the distance and the 55 in the fore...




The 39 all filled up and letting the sand all settle up. Note the overflow tube on the back. Both tanks are going to share a sump filter Im setting up underneath the 55 gallon. Im using a 50 gallon rubbermaid and one of those sterilite 3 drawer sets for the sump. Ill either be using one big pump (850 gph) to pump water back to the tanks or 2 smaller pond pumps (350 gph each) for the return.


The 55 gallon in the process of fillin her up. You can see the ATBA that will span both tanks. I cut out the right side of it so its accessible from both directions.


BIO MEDIA! 45 put scrubbers and Ill be adding 10 more that are already seeded and established from my old sump. Ill put some pictures up of the sump set up. Kind of funny though. My old sump was a 10 gallon glass tank. Now i have a 50 gallon rubbermaid!


More pics and updates to come!



Oh, and i thought this story was something some of you might enjoy. I have some big peices of slate in my 55 gal tank on the bottom and when i put my girlfriends male RES (about 4 1/2 - 5 inches long) in the tank, it started humping the [----] out of the slate rock on the bottom for about 5 minutes. Looked like a dog. Haha.

[jameshermanto]

umm well i have scared about the substrate... sand is ok.. but look at the pink stone, it will make PH changed and thats bad substrate. sand is ok... but the pink stone..., also you have good material for filter... =D, then clean your room after the moving... hope you will be ok =D

[Sassamo]

Scrubbies make good bio media? I am definalty going too grab some and add too my filter

I really need too make a sump or some kind of better filter lol

[grem89]

My g/f put the little stones in the tanks. She's always had them in and the pH has always been about 7.2-7.3. I check it regularly to make sure there are no pH spikes and Ive never had a problem. And yeah i know my room is a messsss. haha. You should see what it looks like behind where i was standing when I took the pictures.

And yes scrubbies make greatttt bio media! You can buy packs of them at the dollar store for....$1! They usually come in packs of 3.

[jameshermanto]

well thats good grem89

[Chrisbarnett]

Yes scrubbies make great biomedia. Bout time some other turtle keeper is using them.

Lookin good.

[Rosepruner]

Looks like a good setup!

Do you think that scrubbies would work in an XP3 filter? I'm still working on getting my new 50 gal set up going, and I'm wondering what I should use for biomedia.

[EmperorTunaFish]

Scrubbies is a great idea. Are there any other type of macgyver media?

[Caphits]

Pantyhose as a polisher, like for REALLY small stuff.

I believe Chris also uses it.

[Chrisbarnett]

Looks like a good setup!

Do you think that scrubbies would work in an XP3 filter? I'm still working on getting my new 50 gal set up going, and I'm wondering what I should use for biomedia.

Yes they would work in a canister, but for the limited amount of space in a canister compared to that in a sump, a media like Fluval Biomax would work better in terms of having more surface area for colonization of biological bacteria for the amount of space taken up in the basket.

Pantyhose as a polisher, like for REALLY small stuff.

I believe Chris also uses it.

I do use pantyhose as well. They work fantastically as a micro polisher. They are similar to 50-100 Micron filter polishing pads.

There is also Pillow/Quilt batting for filter floss, and other DIY approaches to media.

[EmperorTunaFish]

Finally, a use for the hose after I see the Rocky Horror Picture Show.