RES Basking and Lighting?

Question

After careful planning and such for my tank I bought a fairly good size tank (75 gallons) I hope it's enough for a baby RES because it was freaking expensive!!! So far I have decided to do a full rock bottom, canister filter and an in-water basking area until she gets bigger and I may have to do an out of tank basking area. I'm going to use flat shale aquarium rocks and use aquarium glue to glue them together to make a basking area on the top and make a cave/tunnel underneath the basking area for fish to hide or the turtle to swim through. What other typed of decorations should I use for the tank? I am going to put a heating lamp over top of the basking area as well as a UVB or UVA/UVB light over top of the area but I was wondering if I could also use another UV light to illuminate the water? If so would it be best to use UVA or UVB, or UVA and UVB??

Answer 1

Here is two sites, www.AustinsTurtlePage.com   and exotic pets under reptiles

Answer 2

Nice setup but it might be a bit much. The important thing is that you are gluing the stones together so they won't slip and fall on the turtle. The flip side (no pun intended) of rocks is that they make the tank harder to keep clean. My own preference is for a bare tank -- no decor. For illumination, why not use a fluorescent light? You only need UV for basking and those lights are expensive and don't last long.

Answer 3

Your Answer:

Everything sounds perfect.

I like the out of tank basking area and was thinking how I could do that to my pond, if you care to help me. I have 5 and maybe 2 more coming and I need to have a basking area outside the pond and more swim room.

Most decorations will not last like plants, They dig for worms and stuff like they do in the wild in the streams rivers or ponds so the plants are being up rooted.If real plants they will eat them.

UVA/UVB are the best.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29035692@N0...

I am sure you already knew that The bigger the environment the bigger the healthier the turtle. Remember 10 gallons for every inch of turtle.

Did you know that they need to bask under a reptile light UVA/UVB for 8 to 10 hrs a day for the vitamin D that they need to grow. So that means getting a turtle dock also.

Leave the heater on 75 to 78 degrees always.

Their water needs to be clean otherwise they get sick easily from dirty water cause they p**p allot.

Total Body length: 5-8" average, up to 12 inches max. Life span: 15-25+ years

Males have the longer front nails and are used in mating. And are considered mature at about 5 yrs old. You can’t start sexing till about 3” across.

You need a good filter system! Gravel larger than they can swallow.

You need to feed them feeder guppies, goldfish or minnows for protein and calcium daily drop 20 or so in the tanks and watch them disappear in a few days!

This way when they swim for their dinner they get exercise also!

They sleep at the bottom of rivers, streams. lakes or ponds or your tank to avoid predators like coyotes, foxes, owls, hawks, possums, raccoons and even some wide mouth bass.

TOSS in a bird cuttle bone in the water for calcium. it will dissolve real slow and if they eat it that’s fine!!

They can have garden worms, meal worms, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, dragon flies and anything that moves!

They need leafy greens Romaine, Butter lettuce. (Iceberg and cabbage are bad for them, any other leafy greens will do) for vitamin A that they need at least 3 to 4 times a week.

You probably already know that they get sick easily, shell rot, respiratory sickness, lopsided swimming, coughing, blowing bubbles from their nose, Swollen cloudy eyes means lacking in Vitamin A. Which we all need for good eyes. Google ‘vegetables with Vitamin A.

I wish you luck.