Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings all,

This is my first post here on the forums, and I have a ton of questions. I was trying to decide where to post this but I ended up here in the Sliders Forum because it looks to be the highest traffic area, and I need all the help I can get! First off, some background on my situation.

I live near St.Louis, MO and I'm putting in a turtle pond. The approx. dimensions of the pond are 22'x15' with a kidney/foot shape. I have not yet determined what my total depth will be, but I am thinking of having the avg. depth be 2' with some shallow parts and some deeper parts. My rough estimate for the total volume of the pond is 3000 gallons (that seems like a lot!). There will be a waterfall on one end of the pond, and I plan to put the submersible pump at the other end to augment circulation of the water.

My pond will be the centerpiece of a backyard retreat for reading, entertaining guests, and just enjoying good weather. The pond itself will be populated mainly by turtles, specifically red-eared sliders. I plan on doing a cliff with overhang along the perimeter of the pond to prevent escapes. For sunbathing I'm going to get a large piece of cork to float in the pond. I also plan on stocking the pond with snails, minnows, and maybe feeder goldfish.

I have found a place that sells pond liners online, and it just so happens their distribution warehouse is in St.Charles, MO, a mere 20 minutes away. When you subtract shipping from their prices (which is quite a bit for a liner this size!) they have the best prices around.

I have done a lot of reading on the forums here, in a couple books I bought from Lowe's, and in other sites on the net, but there are a lot of questions that are left unanswered (or worse, have contradictory answers). So, I am hoping that one or more of you will lend me your ears and loan me some of your hard-earned wisdom. Here come the questions, as I think of them.

1) I have heard you want to recirculate 50-100% of your pond water per hour. I will try to err on the side of more circulation, but it all comes down to what can I afford. What is the recommended figure for a turtle pond?

2) Are there any disadvantages to using a cork float for the sunbathing area? Where can I get a cork float (I'm assuming PetCo or some other pet place, I was just wondering if you ingenious folks had a better answer).

3) I'm going to build my own filter, since I'm on a very tight budget. I have found a lot of plans and stuff for them on the net, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'm just wondering if there are any things that I want to keep in mind specifically when making a turtle pond filter. And of course if you have a tried and true filter design, that would make my life still easier.

4) I'm also concerned about the water becoming too cloudy to view the turtles. I assume a larger filter will help keep the water clearer, but aside from that, what other tips do you all have for keeping the water crystal clear.

5) I hate seeing pets in conditions that looked cramped. If my pond does indeed end up being 3000 gallons, I am thinking 2 RES's will be plenty. Is this number too high (I'll settle for 1!) or do the turtles really seem indifferent to having a ton of room to stretch their legs?

6) Will the Sliders be able to catch the minnows (or goldfish) or will I just be wasting my time putting them in there? Are there any health considerations when putting fish in the pond with the turtles? I have heard that turtles like crayfish as well, and I can get those. Seems like they might be easier to catch, but they can fight back a little too...

Well, its late and I think I probably forgot a ton of questions, but I'm anxious to hear from all of you. I will respond tomorrow if I think of some more. In the meantime, thank you all (in advance) for your assistance.

-Brian Oehl
beeftree(at)plantimals.org

I can help you with a few things.

Cork bark works well for awhile, but when you first put it in it will stain your water brown, though in a large amount of water you may not even notice. It also will get waterlogged and sink eventually, probably in about 6 weeks. I also have trouble finding pieces bigger than about 12 inches across, which won't support the weight of a full grown female RES.

The rule of thumb for RES is one inch of turtle per ten gallons of water. 300 inches of turtle is a lot of RES, but I am sure then would appreciate being less crowded.

They may catch the minnows and goldfish, but some will probably live a long time, since they will have plenty of space to hide and escape. They do give the turtles exersize and something to do.

I can't help you with the filter questions, but for turtles you generally want about 4 times the filtration that you would need for fish. However, with only 2 RES in that much water you probably wouldn't need much extra filtration.

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i can only input on one of your questions... although i do not have a pond (yet... but one is in the far off future). i 'hear' from others with turtle ponds that water plants work GREAT for keeping the "cloudiness" of the water down... im not sure exactly what kinds, but im sure someone else here can answer that!
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~ Evie

Pets:
0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger and Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.1 Snail {Gary}

Evie,

I definitely plan on incorporating some water plants, I've heard they help a ton. What kind do you (all) recommend? I have heard that turtles love to munch on water hyacinths I think it was, but that they also clean the water. I also am going to get some lily pads, probably from a much larger pond already on the property. but I haven't heard much about those helping clean the water, they'll just help keep the temperature regulated.

I've been focusing my research in the past couple nights to different kinds of home-made filter. Does anyone have any experience with a "skippy" type filter?

Thanks again for all your help everyone, but I need more!!

-Brian Oehl
beeftree@plantimals.org

Hey, I built a pond about 2 years ago that was 14 x 14 x 3 and about a year ago i added a 5 x 7 x 18 side pond with a small stream that connected the two. Originally my ponds were intended for fish but one day in my swimming pool I found 9 baby RES. I decided to put them in my side pond and made it so they couldnt escape. Despite my attempts to keep all the turtles in the side pond, eventually somehow the barrier in the stream fell down. Only two of the turtles remian today, and ive had them for about a year now. In my pond a have water hyacinths water lillys, and other plants. The water hyacinths do a good job of keeping the water clean however my turtles do not eat them. When the turtles were younger they somehow started eatting the fish food that i would feed the fish. I am not sure if they eat muany other things in my pond. The turtles also love the water hyacinths beacuse they are a great place to hide and before they get too big they can sunbathe on them. As you are building your pond I was intending to save as much money as possible. I build my own filter out of two 50 gallon rubbermade tubs that i got from Target. In my filters i have lava rocks in one and air conditiioner pads that i get from home depot. the pads work great and you only have to clean them evey couple of weeks and replace them every 6 months. I bought my pump from lowes for $150 and it is 4450 gph i beleive. After all o fhte research that i have done, this one seams to be the cheapest. For a sunbathing area, i recomend using slate or a log just beacause you wont have to replace them every 6 weeks or so. You can place the slate on top of a cinderblock in a more shallow area of the pond or just brainstorm and come up with other ideas. For my filters that i already described above what i did was had a skimmer basquet that i bought from a pool place, flow into the fliter tubs. The water clarity of the pond can be somewhat obtained with plants such as water hyacinth and anacharis. The both work great however sometimes they are not enough. In flordia the sun can sometimes be a problem with water clarity, and one day i had a incident where when refilling the pond i left the hose on for two long and i couldnt see if any of my fish were still alive. I didn't find out until later when some started to float. After that incident i decided to buy a UV light. Though very expensive ($500 ) it was very worth it for me. It was been over a year and water had been crystal clear for the entire time. You could even 6 hours later how much the light started to work. Building a pond as big as you are, I dont think you could probably have up to 4 turtles. It take a while for them to grow to full size so you dont really have worry about them getting overcrowded. When I had those 9 turtle at first i had them in a tank and the fish really had not much place to run so the turtles could catch them caught them. Hope this helps

Thanks a ton for the info. Do you have any pics of your filter setup? I am a total novice to plumbing and all that jazz, so I am trying to find as many pictures of all the different filter designs that are out there.

I too considered using two smaller tubs instead of one larger one for the filter setup. I have heard that regular chlorinated water will decimate the beneficial bacteria in the biological portion of the filter, so you have to be careful when cleaning. For that reason, I was considering having the mechanical portion of the filter in one tub and then a pipe (with cutoff valve) connecting to the next tub which would contain all the biological medium.

That way the biological portion shouldn't get dirty from big debris, and when the mechanical part needs cleaning I can just switch off the pump and close off the valve and then clean out the mechanical filters without worry of nuking the bacteria.

Also, I was planning on submerging my pump in one end of the pond (away from the waterfall) because that's how all the diagrams in water garden books do it. But a better option would seem to be to put the pump at the end of my filter set-up, after the biological media so that only clean water goes through the pump, which should help its life-span. Are there disadvantages to this plan?

Thanks everyone, again, for your help. If anyone has any other info or pictures of your ponds or filter setups, feel free to email me.

-Brian Oehl
beeftree@plantimals.org

You can have potted plants in the pond for some in-pond filtration. If you use reed type plants in containers, the sliders won't eat those.

When your pond is ready, if it is escape-proof for turtles, then consider adopting some male sliders. One of my adopters had a pond built to be specifically racoon-proof, so the water level started a foot or so below the ledge of the pond. She has 500 gallons, and the two male sliders she adopted last year are doing great, even with our harsh winter this past year.

Male sliders seem to get along better than males of other species, and with males, you won't have to worry about egg-binding if the turtles cannot get out of your pond. Now, if you are willing to make an egg-laying area in the middle of the pond, you could get females. I do not recommend taking in both sexes, unless you are purposelly trying to breed turtles, and then I recommend something besides sliders.

Katrina

Thank you for the info about the cork. After hearing about the possible water discoloration (which admittedly I don't think would be very noticeable, but every little bit helps) and the lack of lengevity, I thought about a different approach.

I think I will try to turn one or more milk crates upside down in one of the shallower parts of the pond and put a large flagstone on it. Because there will only be one large or several smaller stones I don't think I will need to put any sort of "foundation" beneath the liner, which was the main reason I did not want to build a stone island to begin with. I think the "floating rock" will probably be much more attractive than the cork, especially if I can think of a way to disguise the milk crates (surround it partially with water plants?)

I do believe I will add some minnows. Even if the turtles don't catch them, it will give them something to work for (plus I may occassionally put in some "fresh" ones that won't be as used to fleeing for their lives). Thank you very much for your help, and KEEP IT COMING!

Thanks,
-Brian Oehl
beeftree@plantimals.org

I hope you adopt when the time comes. You could put two in a pond that size easily. If the pond is escape-proof itself, then I'd say go with male sliders - they do fairly well together, better than two female sliders! I've never had an owner call in complaining that their male sliders were tearing each other up, but have been called by many a distressed owner whose females are biting body parts off of each other!

Katrina