Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can someone look at the picture I posted on February 28 under the topic help? The green stuff is just getting worse and worse. Is there anything I can do about it, and what is it?
Thanks.

Nothing to worry about, turtles live with this stuff naturally in ponds without any difficulties. I have never successfully gotten rid of the stuff, but I have bleached algae and it seems to work well. Just make sure once you bleach plastic you keep it soaking in fresh water for a month before returning it to your turtle tank because it does build up toxic levels of plastic.
Or you can try some commercial algae away or whatever its called. Ive seen petsmart carry such items.
When algae starts to grow in the tank itself, it can be very difficult to get rid of, but I have a friend that just replaced the rocks and was fine. Anyways, the turtle basking will grow lots of algae on its shell, especially durring molting episodes. Nothing to worry about really, but it may interfere with UVB absorbtion minimally. Just make sure there is plenty of propper lighting. Reptomin have vit D as part of their formulary and can help if you feed commercial turtle foods.

Hope this helps, any worries email me.
Jeff M.
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Jeff M.
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1.2 tri-colored hogs
2.4 w.hogs
1.2 albino RES
2.4 spotted turtles
0.1 puppy
--->2.7 albino mice feeder breeding colony

Thanks for your help.

I get plenty of algae on the basking side of my turtle's tank. I just scrub the glass sides and the fake log in there with one of those plastic net scrub things meant for the kitchen sink, never using it anywhere else, obviously. I use a clean toothbrush to get any algae off the turtle's shell. On the rocks where it's getting long enough to move with the water I like the natural look so I leave that. But if you don't clean it off the glass sides it gets really hardened and you'll eventually have to use a razor blade. That's always a problem with an aquarium that's near a window with bright daylight or sun. I have a guppy tank in my kitchen with only the flourescent light, and there's never any algae in there. Hope this helps. It won't hurt your turtles at all.

i placed my turtles near my window and algae is a hassle!
i use an algaecide. which kills the algae in hours time.. you will notice the algae going brown and some will fall off but you got to do some scrubbing yourself..
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What kind do you use? i went to petsmart and they only had it for fish and the people there didn't think it would be safe for turtles.

do you just scrub it with water and the sponge or do you use some type of cleaner safe for the turtles?

i use a local brand of algaecide from aquaclean. i take my turtles out before putting in algaecide and leave it there for a few hours.. some algae will fall-off but the lot of it will stick to the glass.. i use a plastic scraper because knives and other metal scrapers squeeks!! LoL.. or you can just buy some of those magnet-glass cleaner sets for the glass and just scrub the algae off on its basking land.. when water, land and sun meets.. expect algae..... and lots of it.LoL
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I don't put anything in the water. I don't want any chemicals in there. Just go at it with the plastic scrubby. I only need to do it about once a month or so. If I had pick pieces coming off I would catch them with a net, but otherwise the filter picks up whatever floats around. You just have to keep up with it before it gets really thick.