Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My little painted turtle always seems to lose his fish. He cant catch his own, so I usually feed him with hemostats. But I get tired of holding it eventually, and I let him take it. If it falls off the vegetation and sinks to the bottom of the 55 gallon, he leaves it. He usually only swims about half way down. So I devised a solution by drilling a small hole in his driftwood.

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do you have any more pics of your whole setup?

That fish looks so big compared to him. Have you tried guppies? When my turtle was small he would not eat the big rosies but he loved the guppies. Now he hardly eats fish because he's getting older. For some reason he's the only one of my turtles that will still eat some fish, even the two youngest turtles won't touch fish even if I hold the fish by the tail for them.

every pet store I go to never has guppies. He takes minnows or rosies, but usually drops them trying to rip pieces off. He wont touch Reptomin anymore now that hes had real food.
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Here are some pics of my 55 setup. This is only temporary for me. I just picked up my 120 gallon today. Probly be a couple of weeks before its all set up. The link below has even more pics of the home tank. Caution dial up users, these are good quality photos. Click on the photos on that page for a larger image.

Other pics of home tanks

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Nice pictures and nice set up. I have a couple questions. Is that netting or bubble wrap around the filter and why? Why is there mesh on the driftwood, and why do you have to bleach the driftwood? And lastly I thought my turtles were the only ones that lift their legs like that when thye sun lol. Is it a turtle thing or just a Painted thing? It's really funny anyway.
Oh is that snapping an painted in the same tank? When I was younger and didn't know anything about turtles my brother found a baby painted and I found a baby snapper, or maybe it was the other way around. We had them in the same tank with some smaller feeder fish for them that we got from the pond we found them in. Anyway one day we came home to a dead painted turtle. His shell was snapped in half. Mom made us let the snapper go. They were both so tiny we didn't think anything like that would happen. Anyway just a caution.

the netting is one of those bath scrubbies from walmart. If you take them apart thats what you get. The reason it was on the driftwood, was to help little claws hang on when climbing. Its not there anymore. As for the filter, it traps large particles and has a lot of surface area too. It really helps in front of the polyfill so the polyfil doesnt get clogged so fast.
As for the 2 in the same tank, yes they are for now. They usually stay away from each other and I try to feed them separately. I once had 2 baby snappers and a 2" slider who bit the snappers tails off. one had about 50% tail left and the other only about 15%. The 50% was twice as big as the 15% snapper when I gave them away. Snappers really need that tail for normal everyday stuff. The snapper I have now is relocating to someone elses tank soon, and the little painted will have a 120 all to himself. Maybe its since they are well fed, but the snapper shows no interest in the painted. But the painted does like to take fish away from the snapper.
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Nice pictures and nice set up. I have a couple questions. Is that netting or bubble wrap around the filter and why? Why is there mesh on the driftwood, and why do you have to bleach the driftwood? And lastly I thought my turtles were the only ones that lift their legs like that when thye sun lol. Is it a turtle thing or just a Painted thing? It's really funny anyway.
Oh is that snapping an painted in the same tank? When I was younger and didn't know anything about turtles my brother found a baby painted and I found a baby snapper, or maybe it was the other way around. We had them in the same tank with some smaller feeder fish for them that we got from the pond we found them in. Anyway one day we came home to a dead painted turtle. His shell was snapped in half. Mom made us let the snapper go. They were both so tiny we didn't think anything like that would happen. Anyway just a caution.

Actually, the net stuff on the filter tube thats in the tank is a plastic sink scourer unwound. It works as a prefilter and keeps large particles from going in the filter like plants and stuff. Also the crayfish like to climb on it. As for bleaching the driftwood, I found an article online for preparing driftwood for aquarium use, and that was one of the steps. I suppose its to kill any organisms in the wood, or else to leach out the tannins or something. But then, mushrooms are still growing out of it.
Also, all painted turtles ive had hold their legs up when basking. They flip their feet over occasionally too, like flipping eggs on a frying pan.

More about the snapper.... Perhaps its from being in such a large tank that the snapper and painted dont interact.
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I've done similar lids and stands. I'd recommend you polyurethane the heck out of that lid, several layers and right over any fixtures you have (or remove them and do it in pieces) the humidity coming off the water doesn't seem like much but man, one day you realize the lid is rotting and ruined. I'd probably poly the plywood shelf of your stand at least, too, since inevitably there are drips and such that can dissolve the glues in the plywood.

Looks great, though! You build like I do, way sturdier than necessary. Although I must say your quality of cuts and fitting looks better than mine (I rush way too often).