I have two red ear sliders. One is getting pretty large and one is a little larger than a silver dollar. I just upgraded their tank from a 10 gal long to a 20 gal long. The problem is that once I moved them to the larger tank, after a water change, a day later the tank is extremely cloudy and smells like ammonia. I've have to clean the tank almost every three days which is a pain. I have a semi-submercible filter that is rated for 20 gal, there is not even 10 gal of water in the tank. I been using ammon block and additional water treatment products after every water change but the tank stinks and is still dirty after the water change. This never happened in the three years they were in the 10 gal tank. Are my turtles sick or is their something wrong with the tank?
2007-02-21 03:39:54 · 4 answers · asked by becks 2 in Pets ➔ Reptiles
1. It takes a while for the biological filtration to start to work on a new filter. You will almost always see a 'bloom' until the bacterial colony grows big enough. Unfortunately, a lot of the things you have done can delay the growth of the biological elements.
2. Bigger turtles are messier. This is actually a good thing- messy turtles are usually growing turtles.
3. Your tank and filter are too small. The tank size rule is "10 gallons of swimming water per inch of turtle shell length", and the rule for filters is '2-3 times stonger than the same size fish tank would take".
Your two turtles sound like they are about 4-6" and 1-2", which means the WATER SPACE available to them should run between 50 and 80 gallons. Let's call it 60. A 60 gallon turtle tank takes a filter rated for a 180 gallon fish tank to keep the water anywhere near clean.
4. Why are you seeing this now? Because you have improved their habitat and they are acting more naturally. I'd bet their appetite picked up as well. They WERE stressed and over-crowded, and can now play and frolic!
The better the habitat, the more naturally our turtles act. Thankfully, bigger habitats are actually EASIER to maintain!
5. What should you do now? Get a BIG tank (your two turtles COULD grow up to total about 20" long!) The best, cheapest tanks are kiddie wading pools, plastic stock tanks, or the bigger plastic storage tubs. Get a BIG filter (see the 'Water Quality' section of http://www.austinsturtlepage.com for advice), or get several smaller filters to handle the load.
This is also a good time to think about things like heating the tank to 75-80F, adding good basking lights, adding UVB light, etc.
Austin's Turtle Page (above) has advice on all of this, as does http://www.redearslider.com
Good luck!
2007-02-21 05:26:11 · answer #1 · answered by Madkins007 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Anytime you set up a new tank you will have cloudy water. This is called " new tank syndrome". There is a whole biological process that needs to establish when a new tank is set up. There are millions of bacteria that develop in tanks that actually help break down the ammonia and nitrites in the water. These bacteria take time to develop. Your 10 gallon tank would have had these beneficial bacteria established therefore the ammonia was being broken down. Now that you have a new tank, you have to start from scratch. Give it time. Just don't panic and rinse the 20 gallon completely out. If you do this you will destroy the beneficial bacteria and the problem won't get better.
2007-02-21 04:53:16 · answer #2 · answered by Trixstix 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
We have a painted turtle who is about 4" across and we have him in a 55 gal tank and we have only about 25 gal of water in it. We drain the tank once a week just for cleanliness reasons. We hand made half of our filter system. We used a pump that is usually hooked up to a charcoal box and instead of that we draw the water from directly under the filter plates and it then goes through a PVC and sink drain filter system we made. on the other end of the tanks is a submersable filter pump that filters the surface water. The tank stays relatively clear and clean. If you would like I can send you pictures of our set up.
2007-02-21 03:48:12 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Switch them to a new tank, and if it happens again. Inform the manufacturer. Or try a new filter, it might be bad too. Or put them back in the 10 gal, see if they still have problems. Than you will know if it's them or the tank.
2007-02-21 03:45:38 · answer #4 · answered by jlyn1980 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋