Habitat - Indoor :: Hood for turtle tank?

[callmepotato83]

I have 2 RES and one yellow-belly slider (in two seperate tanks). One of the RES is an adult and in his own tank. At the moment, I am living with my mother-in-law, who think that the mesh top and clamp lamps detract from the appearance of the living room, so she is requiring me to buy a hood for the tanks.

I've done a little research online and thought this one might be the best when considering cost and practicality. What do you guys think?
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... y&keepsr=1

It has a Fluorescent bulb as well as three incandescent bulb fixtures. If I was to buy this one, what should the proper setup in lighting be? We're trying to stick to energy efficient stuff at the moment...electric bills have gone through the roof. Would a regular fluorescent tube bulb be fine, and then get a smaller compact fluorescent UVB bulb be good or should I opt for the tube UVB and regular compact fluorescent lights?

This is the smaller bulb I was talking about:
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... y&keepsr=1

This is the larger one:
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... y&keepsr=1

And this is Thomas, my 5 year old RES:



And just for fun...here's Lily, my baby RES and Dax, my baby YBS:

[jtjordan]

how big is your tank?

[callmepotato83]

Not nearly big enough, unfortunately. It's a 30 gallon. Trying hard to convince the mother-in-law to allow a bigger tank for him...she's not keen on taking up prime living room real-estate with a giant tank. And there's no room anywhere else for a tank.

The two babies are in a 20 gallon long tank...both of them are very small, so it's more than large enough.

[DocShay]

I hope you're able to get something more adequate for them

[callmepotato83]

I hope so as well. I make sure to keep their tanks very clean, to compensate. And I let them get a lot of natural sunlight by taking them outside. I'm planning on building a tank for the older RES who is about 6 inches long...it'll look something like this. Will be about two feet wide, two feet high, and three or four feet long, depending on how much the materials cost.