my suggestion: get the turtles out of there. i inherited 2 red eared sliders and my roommate put 15 feeder goldfish in there, they didnt touch them. they are 13 year old sliders and have never gotten feeders so they didnt know what to do with them... but they figured it out eventually and now there are no goldfish left. risk your fish if you want but as they get bigger the cichlids may look pretty nice for dinner one day.
another thing. you should post a pic to show your setup. do you have a screen lid that the heat lamp sits on? do you have the other compact flourescent bulb that lights up fish tanks? this sounds like a really wierd set up to me, and i dont think your turtles really appreciate having to go up almost 2 feet to the top just to bask, mine constantly stay under the heat lamp in or out of the water and just poke their heads up out of the water. they breathe air like us, i wouldnt like to have to swim an equivalent of 10 ft just to get some air and sun.
another thing. you should post a pic to show your setup. do you have a screen lid that the heat lamp sits on? do you have the other compact flourescent bulb that lights up fish tanks? this sounds like a really wierd set up to me, and i dont think your turtles really appreciate having to go up almost 2 feet to the top just to bask, mine constantly stay under the heat lamp in or out of the water and just poke their heads up out of the water. they breathe air like us, i wouldnt like to have to swim an equivalent of 10 ft just to get some air and sun.
