All Turtles Message Board

Christina · Level 2 Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 29 Location: New Jersey

I have a 29 gal tank and I'm getting a baby RES on Sunday but I'm not sure how to set it up. Anybody that has pics of a 29 gal tank please post them on here so I can get some ideas. Thank You!

I have all the appropriate items required I'm just not sure how to arrange the tank. Confused

2turtles · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:20 am Post subject:

Here's some 29gal setups..

You can see here they've gone with a bare bottom. This is highly recommended to keep the tank cleaner, and to prevent the turt from becoming too interested in eating the small decorative gravel many fishtanks have. There is a basking area in the upper left, and you can see the clips for the UVA/UVB light and basking light. Plenty of room to swim and play.

Same basking platform as above, but this owner has chosen the small decorative rocks. I have seen my Turts eat (at least attempt to eat) these rocks and I would strongly advise against putting them in the tank. You can see the hatchling up on the log in the upper left, and one on the bottom left. As I said previously, hatchling RES's are excellent swimmers. They are usually in ponds and lakes which are much much deeper than anything we can provide.

Here is a 29gal setup next to a new 55gal tank. You should be planning ahead when you buy your supplies as the RES will outgrow the 29gal in 12-18 months. You will be amazed at how fast she grows. Buying a larger canister filter today which you can use on a 55gal or 75gal tank in the future will save money in the long run - unless you have the benefit of building an outdoor pond in the future... I would expect that a 55gal or 75gal would be adequate for the life of the turt, but bigger is always better.

Here's a simple basic setup. The fake plants give the hatchling something to climb on, sleep on and basically rest if she gets tired of swimming. I'm nto a huge fan of the basking rock, but I will point out RES (and turts in general) are very very very good climbers, and she will not have any problem getting completely out of the water in this setup.
I would speculate this is a 'new' setup, which was just filled because their filter will not keep the tank that clean for more than a day or two..
_________________
1.0.0 Trachemys scripta scripta----1.0.1 Chrysemys picta picta
0.0.2 Emydura subglobosa subglobosa----0.0.1 Testudo hermanni boettgeri

Christina · Level 2 Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 29 Location: New Jersey

Thanks for the pics!