All Turtles Message Board

vietgurliexdc

I have one southern painted and TX map both are babies. I just recently upgraded to a 125 gallon tank and about to purchase a XP3 filter, aquaclear 110, and 300 watt heater. I am going to put everything together sometime this week. But I have a few questions. Before when I had a smaller tank I used pure drinking water to fill up the tank and this was perfectly safe for my turts, fishes and ghost shrimp. But now that I have a new tank that is 125 gallons I cannot be using drinking water every week. I am going to start using tap water. So, my questions are:

1) Should I wait for the water to cycle for about a week before putting my turts in? I can leave the other fishes in the smaller tank before putting them in the new tank.

2) is it safe to use FRESHWATER FISH WATER CONDITIONERS with my turtle being in it too?

3)Should I only use Turtle water conditioner? and then bring in my other fishes later?

4) Any other suggestions with filters?

5)Is tap water really safe for my turts? How much does it affect them?

I'll post new questions if I think of anything else. I won't start the transition until I know everything is safe. Hopefully soon so please help me out Thanks guys!!!

Fred_and_George · Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:37 am Post subject:

1. I dont think that waiting for that long is necesarry. whenever i change all the water in my tank, i just put it in there, with some warm, some cold to make sure that it isnt too cold, and i let the filter run in it for a bit, and then i put the turtles in that same day.

2. I dont know about fish conditioners, but i have reptile water conditioners that i got in the reptile isle of the petsmart here. i also get those turtle shaped blocks to help condtion the water (but i take it out when it is half dissolved, otherwise it leaves an ugly white line at the water level blah) i also got this turtle bio-clean stuff. it helps to reduce odor and break down waste so that benificial bacteria can thrive and make your ecosystem (that is what a turtle tank is after all) all that much better. the turtle water conditioners are good for the fish too. i have an algea eater and a bunch of guppies, and none of them have ever died, so i guess the water is good for them.

3. the only thing with fish is that you need to acclimatize them. you should put them in a plastic bag (ziploc or similar) with their normal water, and then put the bag with the fish and old water in the new water, to let the temperature equalize. this should take a half hour to an hour, depending on how much water you have. then you can just pour the fish into the tank and they should be fine.

4. with filters, bigger is better if you have a lot of water. normal fish filters are for fish, not for turtles, and so dont handle the waste from turtles as well as fish waste. so if you are putting lots of water in that tank, i would suggest a big, heavy duty filter. in my 40 gallon tank, which has about 20 gals of water in it, i have a filter made for a tank with 40 gallons of water, and it copes well. so, in this case , more is more ( as opposed to less is more lol)

5. tap water should be fine, if you really do worry about it, go out and buy those big blue water jugs meant for water dispensers. they usually have more pure water than tap. but you need to treat this stuff too.

hope all this helps, sorry im a bit wordy Rolling Eyes

Storm_Rider · Level 2 Joined: 28 Oct 2006 Posts: 99

Hey I live in San Jose too! Where'd you adopt your turtles from? I agree with what Fred and George said, for the most part. I don't acclimiate my fish for half an hour, 5 mins and they better deal with it, which they always do.

I use tap water on a daily basis with my red ears, I feed them in a bucket because they poo a lot and cleaning the tank is hasslesome with all the junk I got in it. I use either reptile or fish water conditioner, whatever I grab first out of the drawer. I have 2 sharks and dozens of feeder guppies and ghost shrimp in my tank and none ever die except when they are eaten. Turtles eat ghot shrimp too Sad

I don't think you need 2 large filters in your tank, but it sure would be cleaner. My friend has an xp3 on his 55gallon planted tank and those things get messy but the filter keeps it lookin clear and clean. Filters don't actually filter out turtle urine I read so you'll still be doing regular water changes, I'd hold back on a second filter because one should be able to keep the water clean. I have a fluval 403 cleaning the water for eight 2-inch red ears and the water is always crystal clear, a bit smelly.. but crystal

On a side note, where do you get your supplies and what not from?

vietgurliexdc · Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:43 pm Post subject:

OMG thanks Fred and George for answering me I've been kinda worried and wonderig what I should do. I DO NOT want to kill my turt b/c the tap water. So, I think I will get both fish and turtle water conditiones. I do not mind wordy since I need as much information as I can get. Storm_Rider, Thanks for your respond it was all helpful. That's soo cool you from San Jo too because not a lot of people from San Jose go on the forums I dont think. Don't see too many. Ummm....I've been doing a lot of research on the forums and they say the best place to buy reptile stuff for cheap is bigalsonline.com. I checked it out yesterday lots of cheap stuff and shipping is cheap!!! I am going order all my stuff there expcept for the aquaclear 110 b/c he only carries up to aquaclear 70. I would suggest to go there because a lot of our pet stores are expensive with the fluval. But I have not compare the Fluval prices with bigalsonline.com. I did check Brian's Fish World yesterday and their 405 was like 189.00. Where do you get your ghost shrimps at? We have a lot here huh? Yeah, I buy a lot too because my turt can't even catch them yet! So I like watching the ghost shrimp. I bought my southern painted from an online vendor. I just bought a map and should be sent out on Monday from PAUL C. What pet store do you pefer to go to? I like petsmart here because they really do take care of the fishes, etc. They are always cleaning when I go there and never had problems with them. I've read on some threads that people don't like petsmart but I think because maybe we are in California which have strict animal laws with huge population of animal lovers. I also sometimes go to King aquarium. O yeah where do you get your red-sliders at? Thanks for all your feedback guys!

Storm_Rider · Level 2 Joined: 28 Oct 2006 Posts: 99

I get the ghost shrimp at king aquarium too, 6 for a $1 beats all the other places.. right?.. i stop by every tuesday or every other tuesday to get shrimp and guppies because thats when they get in their new shipments. though i think i'm going to stop getting shrimp because cleaning up their transparent shells is getting to be a pain in the butt. cleaning up guppie corpses was annoying too but i hope my lobsters will deal with that for me.

i got my first two red ears in oakland during their annual china town street fair thing a month or two ago. then i got the rest of them from lucky goldfish over on commercial and oakland st. they also have 2 shops set up at the flea market on berryessa.