This is his new enclosure, minus the heat lamp right now because I have to get a reflective lamp for it, which I'm doing this week. He seems to really enjoy the nice space.

By the way, the brick with the black stuff on it is gone. Don't know how it escaped my eyesight the first time.

Are the bricks bad on the bottom of his shell or is it all right? I don't want him to get scraped up or anything.

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do you have a uvb light for him?

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Yeah, I have the self ballasted mercury bulb from ReptileUV, but it didn't come with a reflective hood and I don't have a lamp to put it in yet. (getting it ASAP)

I've felt guilty every day for not having it set up. I have been taking him out for about an hour or two every day, but I know this isn't sufficient.

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Just made 50 bucks, sooo... I have more money for the inclosure now!!
Plan on making a few adjustments. I'll post pics when I'm done.

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I dont know if the bricks are good in the first place. I know I should know this,, but, lol, are bricks made out of some kind of concrete or mortar? I know I cannot use them in my ponds because I was told they leach something into the water. I will have to find out more when my hubby gets home.

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oh, another thing,, how big is that tub?

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To my knowledge, bricks will just make the water "hard". lol (No pun intended.) Something about them raises the alkalinity or something to that affect. If the bricks are dyed, that could become an issue.

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okay,, so I looked it up myself, lol. You are right they do raise the ph of the pond water to unsafe levels for koi, so that is why I was told not to use them. I am not sure how they are going to affect the sliders.

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Do you know to what levels specifically?

As for the enclosure, I feel kind of bad for saying this, because it's obvious you're making improvements, but aside from the brick issue the habitat just doesn't look very big on the inside. If that whole thing was the water area, and then you had extra for land, then I'd say it looks good. But with all those bricks in there he can only get wet, he really can't swim or dive.

If you use a plastic tub like that, I'd make sure it's at least 40-50 gallons, if not bigger. Then, instead of stacking bricks, you may want to buy or make a device that attaches to the wall or hangs from the edge. That way it doesn't displace precious water volume. I know you can buy such products that are designed to stick to the walls of an aquarium, but I'm not sure if they'd stick as well to a plastic tub like that, so I quickly sketched this for you:


If you could build something like that, out of non-toxic materials, then you could hang it over the side. You could keep the water level just below it, so that he can breathe even when underneath it. Also, if you built a screen top, something you could easily do with some cheap lumber and chicken wire, you could raise the water level so that it's as close to the top as you can get without flooding the basking platform.

If you didn't want to build something like that, you could also purchase something like the following, and hope it sticks to the wall, or rig it somehow. I recommend the Turtle Dock over the R-Zilla, due to the ramp.

R-Zilla Floating Basking Platform
http://www.petdiscounters.com/mc_ima...latform_00.jpg

Turtle Dock
http://www.petdiscounters.com/mc_ima...age/d_3070.jpg

Other people build what's called an "above tank basking platform". Which can be fancy, like this one:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11.../baskspot1.jpg

Or less so, like this one:
http://www.takoda-aviary.com/turtle/baskingarea.jpg

Naturally if you ever made anything like that last one, I'd take care to make sure it's secure.

If you went with a platform vs the above-tank set-up, I'd put some screen over the top of your enclosure. This would allow you to put the basking area right near the top, thus allowing for water almost twice as deep as what you have now. You can even buy a cheap plastic version of chicken wire, which wouldn't rust. You only need it there to dissuade your turtle from trying to climb out, and it's plenty wide to let all the UVB through.

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koi and goldfish like higher ph than lets say your tropical fish and stuff like that. I was told it raises it higher than 7.5. In thinking about that, I have no idea if that would be safe for the sliders or not. I will haveto check that out.

So in the fact hat koi and golfish can tolerate higher PH levels, and they tell you not to do this for them, because it can harm them, it definately makes me wonder.............

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