Introductions and Inspirations

[Keen_BTF]

Hello all! I am Keen and I have been a turtle keeper for going on 5 years now. I have a Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) who has a roughly 6" carapace. He enjoys long walks on the beach and burrowing down in the sand to talk about his day. His name is Adamantoise, or just Adam for short.

Currently his tank is rather basic. Rocks, sand, basically a southern stream without the vegetation. I keep it around 6-8" deep, just enough to allow him to burrow into the sand and still be able to crane his neck out to breathe every once in a while. He eats fuzzies, fish, other small reptiles (mainly baby lizards), and turtle sticks (The sticks are like his junk food). I have a heater in there to keep the water an even temp all year since we live in New England. He does not hibernate of course, but I think he appreciates the gesture.

He has only bitten us once because we are generally smart about feeding him, but accidents happen. He is my favorite pet and we have quite a few. I want to spoil him a bit with a new tank and setup since its just about time to upgrade his tank.

I am wanting to use wood for the decorations along with stones, and I want to put in a powerhead to simulate waterflow. The filter I have is working well so I will just leave that alone. I have never put vegetation in his tank, but people tell me he would eat the plants. I have my doubts as he is young still, but who knows?

So if any of you have any ideas on a nice aquascape that will still give him lots of floor-space, let me know. I am looking forward to continuing to browse this forum. I have been lurking for a while now and decided to join today.

Happy Tank-Keeping Y'all!
-Keen & Adam

P.S
Thought I should edit in: I know ownership of snappers is restricted in some states and have made all proper inquiries before we ever moved here to be sure keeping him with me was allowed. So he is perfectly legal in the state that I reside in.

 

[tlindsey]

Hello all! I am Keen and I have been a turtle keeper for going on 5 years now. I have a Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) who has a roughly 6" carapace. He enjoys long walks on the beach and burrowing down in the sand to talk about his day. His name is Adamantoise, or just Adam for short.

Currently his tank is rather basic. Rocks, sand, basically a southern stream without the vegetation. I keep it around 6-8" deep, just enough to allow him to burrow into the sand and still be able to crane his neck out to breathe every once in a while. He eats fuzzies, fish, other small reptiles (mainly baby lizards), and turtle sticks (The sticks are like his junk food). I have a heater in there to keep the water an even temp all year since we live in New England. He does not hibernate of course, but I think he appreciates the gesture.

He has only bitten us once because we are generally smart about feeding him, but accidents happen. He is my favorite pet and we have quite a few. I want to spoil him a bit with a new tank and setup since its just about time to upgrade his tank.

I am wanting to use wood for the decorations along with stones, and I want to put in a powerhead to simulate waterflow. The filter I have is working well so I will just leave that alone. I have never put vegetation in his tank, but people tell me he would eat the plants. I have my doubts as he is young still, but who knows?

So if any of you have any ideas on a nice aquascape that will still give him lots of floor-space, let me know. I am looking forward to continuing to browse this forum. I have been lurking for a while now and decided to join today.

Happy Tank-Keeping Y'all!
-Keen & Adam

P.S
Thought I should edit in: I know ownership of snappers is restricted in some states and have made all proper inquiries before we ever moved here to be sure keeping him with me was allowed. So he is perfectly legal in the state that I reside in.

Welcome aboard

There is a couple of Members who have Snapping Turtles.

 

[Keen_BTF]

Good to know! It's hard to find other keepers.

 

[Yoimbrian]

There is a snapper that lives in the pond / drainage pit on my property I see pretty often, she's at least 12" shell . She even laid eggs in my yard this year (never saw them hatch...) I've heard someone released goldfish into the neighboring pond like 50 years ago and now they are everywhere, so I'm guessing her diet is mostly goldfish, frogs, and bugs. I've let my dog out a few times before I saw her in the yard and thankfully my dog is smart / scared enough to stay
Out of snapping range. I consider her sort of a pet...

In all seriousness though never kept a pet turtle. How big of a tank are you thinking? Are you thinking this next build will be his forever home? What kind of filter do you have???

I like well decorated tanks, but yes you need to avoid taking up all of the open space. I personally like the look of 3D backgrounds, coupled with some manzanita driftwood and a rock or two. Plants do indeed brighten up a tank, but can get eaten or destroyed as well. Try a bunch of the easier ones and see if anything survives his pallet...

 

[Keen_BTF]

I am just using a $40 Aquatech double filter made for a 60 gallon tank. He is in an 80-wide right now, with about 20-30 gallons of water in it so the filter keeps it really clean. It wont be his permanent tank as he stil has a lot of growing to do. His permanent place wil be a custom pond outdoors, but for now he is small enough that I want to keep him inside. I am thinking of making it cover most of the wall in my back room, so 10 feet long by 3-3.5 wide. It wont be deep because he prefers to be in shallower water. I am thinking of trying some plants but I want to make sure I get some that will not hurt him if he decides to much them. I will be building shelves underneath his tank and next to it to house fisheries and ratteries. I would like to raise all of his food myself so I know exactly what I am feeding him.

 

[Muni]

wow, 10 x 3 is quite a large tank. Would love to see that.

Is this a house that you or your family own? I ask because a large tank can weigh quite a lot and can damage floors or bring down houses if not properly accounted for. 10' x 3' filled to 2 feet of water is 450 gallons. Which can add up to 5000 pounds when assembled.

 

[Keen_BTF]

It will not be 2 feet of water, just about 6 inches. He prefers shallower water so that he can bury himself in the substrate and still reach his neck up to breathe.

This would come up to about 934 pounds, and the weight will be spread out over a wide area (312 sq in), with no more than about 3 pounds per square inch. This is of course just the water. There will be a lot of sand and stone in the tank. All in all there will be a wide distribution of the weight so that no part of the flooring will be taking on much weight. It will be on the ground floor with concrete under the flooring, so no worries there.

 

[Gourami Swami]

Welcome to MFK
Here is a setup I made for red eared sliders about 10ish years ago
Turtle setups are great in my opinion because you can do some really cool DIY stuff like this and incorporate a land area into it that can look however you want. This was a simple build and was easy to add onto this 72-bowfront tank. It wasn't the prettiest thing but got the job done and my turtles loved basking on the upper deck.

 

[Muni]

Awesome, best of luck to you. If/when you start building make sure you start a thread over in the DIY section. Lots of experienced builders in there.