Red Eared Slider Cage Maintenance?

Question

New Cage. Water turns cloudy within a few hours and then within a day it is turning green. The old cage did not have this problem. Please help. We are using chlor out to treat the water after each cleaning.

also I meant Aquarium not cage.

This is my roommates pet and I was concerned. She does not have a filter but I will make sure she purchases one ASAP.

Sorry for the confusion on the "cage" "aquarium" deal.
Thanks again all for your help.

Answer 1

This is an excert from my res care guide. I hope it helps. Part of the reason that the water may turn green is the food that you put in. I used T-Rex food for a while but it was impossible to remove all of the extra food and it turned the water green too. I switched to ZooMed food (has same ingredients and nutrients) and now there's no longer that problem.

CLEANING THE TANK

You'll probably have to clean the tank once a week if not more. I find that this is easily done with a water syphon. You can get these sepcially made for aqariums that both drain and fill the tanks. You'll want to have a back up tank or tub to put your turtle in while doing a tank cleaning. You'll also want to put any feeder fish in this too. The rocks really just need a good rinse but to really get the tank clean you have to take them out. I spray the tank with ZooMed's Wipe Out and it helps kill and prevent salmonilla, which is very common in reptiles. You could simply use anti-bacterial and animal safe soap, like Dawn, to clean the tank also.

MAINTANING A CLEAN TANK

This is really not as hard as it sounds as long as you change the filter properly. You can also use snails (sucker fish aren't really recomended as the turtle may eat them) which the turtle may eat but are really inexpensive and really good for the tank. You can also add a plant called Anacharis which eats the turtle feces, looks good in the tank, is an oxygenizer, and the turtle may eat it. You can also add water conditioner like ZooMed's Repti-Safe which reduces pH, adds electrolites, helps ammonia build up, and a big list of good stuff. To help control disease, you can also use a turtle health conditioner (TetraFauna makes a really good one). You can also add Exo-Terra's Biotize to the tank to help eat the turtle feces but is pretty uncesseary. For new arivals you may want to add something that adds electrolites as it is kinda tramatizing when they're moved around a lot and good for new arrivals. A good thing for this, I've found, is Exo-Terra's Electrodize. If you want to get really paranoid you can always use pH strips too to make sure the water is perfect for them.

Answer 2

I hope when you say "cage" you mean tank. Do you have a filter? Make sure the filter you have is powerful enough for the amount of gallons of water in your tank. Having a filter for sliders is a MUST, theres no way around it. Their tanks get filthy in one day without a tank, especially if you have more than one slider. Also, do not feed them more than they can eat because the pellet food is not water-soluble and clogs the filter.

Answer 3

Are you filtering the water? Keeping it moving will help also.
Substrate? You may need to pull the sustrate and clean it better or have less.

New tanks need to cycle.....Google cycling aquariums.
There are products to speed this up, but not sure if they are safe for turtle...read labels carefully.

Next time use some of the old water in the new tank.

Call your local fish store for advice also.

Answer 4

Get a good filter. Algae and bacteria really LOVE to grow in a typical trutle cage- lots of nutrients in the water, light, warmth- wonderful for them!

For a good article on choosing filters, go to the Articles section of http//www.austinsturtlepage.com

Answer 5

She possibly basically isn't her commonly used self through fact her habitat have been given a drastic exchange. No UVB or filter out. Turtles could be surprisingly messy so whether you clean the tank out as quickly as a week, in case you do not have a filter out attempt to feed them in a separate field and while they are executed eating pass away them in there for a final 20 minutes in case they could desire to pass to the bathing room. it is likewise a stable concept to do this outdoors so as that they are in a position to get some UVA/UVB rays from the sunlight. Having the turtle tank in direct image voltaic could desire to not be that super of an concept. For some motives. One, water interior the sunlight grows algae. 2, by using the day the sunlight beats down from diverse angles. it could desire to be attainable that at it sluggish throughout the time of the day they does not have a place to get out of the sunlight into colour through way the sunlight is thrashing on them. in spite of is going on along with your turtle i wish is going away!

Answer 6

yea this is a serious condition all you schould do is buy a filter