Habitat - Indoor :: Raphael's new home

[james04si]

Hello everyone. Great site here with lots of information on it. I found Raphael a little over a month ago and have been lurking on the site ever since. He is very small about an inch or so.



When I first got him I went to walmart and picked up a 10 gallon tank only to find out that would be way too small once he grows up. I figured why keep upgrading tanks throughout his life and just go for broke. I found a 120 gallon tank (4'x2'x2') and stand on craigslist that could use a little cleaning up and I was able to talk the guy down to $100.





So I started the job of sanding off what I swear was 1/8" of polyurethane and painted it with brown paint I had sitting around.



Not exactly what I was hoping for So I put on some black over it and it looked much better.



After reading on here some more I really liked the look of someones ATBA so I decided I would copy it and this is what I ended up with today.



And to add a little flair of my own I purchased some waterproof strip LED lighting from amazon.com and made it so I could change colors in the tank if I wanted.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/r1J7MwZZkbU[/youtube]
http://youtu.be/r1J7MwZZkbU

Hopefully with all the expertise here Raphael will live a long good life.

[ljapa]

Very, very nice!

Raphael is one lucky turtle.

[steve]

I'm jealous His seams look a little bit thick, so you should review his diet a bit.

[james04si]

I started noticing that a little while back. I have since cut down on his pellets, a little less than his head filled with pellets size daily and he has really started liking dandelion leaves. That's another thing this site has taught me. Who would have guessed they will beg for food constantly. I thought I was starving him when I first got him.

[steve]

They definitely are beggars. I'm thinking that maybe hatchlings should be getting around 75% of the "head amount". While the head amount guide has greatly reduced over feeding, we still see some problems.