Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my painted turtle right now is only about 5 inches long but he sure is growing fast. I read they can get 10 inches, thats a pretty big turtle. I wont be able to put him in an out door pond so he needs to be housed in something inside. Many any one who owns large turtles tell me what they keep their turtle in or how many gallon tank a large turtle would need.

Do you have tight grip on your wallet?
Nothing less than a 75 GAL. tank, (a 95GAL. or a 120GAL. would be better)then you'll need a stand, along with good quality UVA and UVB light sources. Enough filtration to do 80 GAL's.(assuming you fill the 75GAL. tank halfway) A water heater, an air pump and an air stone, some kind of basking set-up. And lastly, some kind of heating device to keep the air temps in the tank at 80F plus.
If you buy online you can probably get everything you need here for $500 to $600.
Don't take this response as if I'm being a wise guy, I'm being quite serious. Once you get past the initial cost of setting up a proper habitat, turtles are great pets. But you got to make the investment if you want them to be healthy and long lived.
Bob, Philadelphia.

well, there are cheaper options but checker is right...expect to spend quite a bit.
i disagree about the airpump and airstone you can save money on those as you don't really need them but i think i'd lean toward larger tanks.
a ten inch turtles needs a minimum of 10 square feet of swimming space (surface area) so i'fd go with nothing smaller than a 120 or 125 standard. a 180 is better.
but you can get the same amount of space from a really big horse trough pr stock tank for less money (but if the visual appeal is an issue a tank maybe be a better option)

uvb lights are really needed (though you should still supplement the food and the water with calcium with vitimin d3) but we seem to be finding that the mercury vapor bulbs work much better than the long tubes so you can at least get just one for heat/uvb that way.
you will need a ceramic fixture for it though.
and lots of filtration:
(look at canister filters and maybe powerfilters like the aquaclear 500).
make some basking spots and caves (two of each is enough) large pieces of bark are ideal for this and can often be obtained for free if you live near a wooded area (don't kill trees or rape forest litter though, please).
You should probably invest in something to help you drain the water.
If you look at it as a possible certerpiece for some room and aim to make it very attractive, you can do so while still meeting the turtle's needs and that way (for some people, at least) it doesn't seem so hard to part with the cash.
Or if you don't care how it looks but wanna do it cheap...look at the posts mentioning stock tanks and feed troughs and follow the links in them to the sites that sell these. They offer more space than all but enormous tanks but have some disadvanges too.
good luck.

Bloomindaedalus,
I've found that running an air stone greatly diminishes the fecal gases and ammonia scum that collect on the surface. It seems like the ammonia remover in my filters just isn't enough by itself. I would still get small spots of the scum.
Adding the airstone really did the trick for me. Do you have another method that gets rid of surface scum?
Bob, Philadelphia.

Painted turtles do not need their water heated. The normally
live and thrive in water that is low 70's. As long as the
room temp stays about 70 degrees and there is a basking spot
they will thrive. That should save you a little money.

I use a large cattle trough for my turtles. One word of
caution, if your turtle is growing very fast you are probably
overfeeding it. This could cause some problems in the future.

Hope this helps
Linda

Is that a western painted? The pic looks like a cooter or slider to me not a painted. If its a female cooter they can get huge (think shoebox).

Kevin