Ammonia B-gone!

AustinASU

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Don't eat the produce from aquaponics if you are using turtles, fish are a lot safer. If you do grow produce only grow it to feed the turtles. You run a high risk of contracting some gnarly protozoa....I only use fish in my aquaponics for this main reason.
 

ZEROPILOT

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Turtle, even with your bacteria "boosters", you'll need a few months to get it all regulated. I know that this all seems like too much info, but, you;ll see. It will all become second nature to you. You seem to have caught on to the concepts.
 

Yellow Turtle01

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Hmm, carrots like the wet... :D I also do an edible (for people) plant like watercress or something.
EDIT- Whoops, just read that! Hahaha, yuck.... :confused:
I know, I'd just like for it to be done now... :(
 

tglazie

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Interesting. Whenever I need to change the water in my fifty five for my southern painted, I use the garden hose out back. What I do is run the hose to the tank, then have my brother hold the hose in place with the end held against the bottom of the tank. I then run back outside and turn the water on. I let it run until the bubbles leave the hose, at which point I turn the hose off. I then unscrew the hose and run it to a flower bed off the corner of my concrete patio. The gravity and closed pressure of the siphon drains the water from my tank in a matter of minutes (water always seeks the lowest point). Once the water level is an inch or so deep, I remove the hose to the outdoors, then my brother and I carry the tank out to the porch, where I reconnect the hose to the sprayer and scrub out the tank with a five percent bleach solution with a little eco friendly dish detergent. Once I've scrubbed every inch, I spray the tank out thoroughly, multiple times, after which I allow the tank to dry upside down for twenty minutes. At this point, I clean all the filter fittings and replace the media. I generally rely upon ammonia removers, zeolite, and activated carbon, given that turtles tend to produce too much waste to make a biological filtration system practicable in all but the largest of installations (when I had my pond at my old rental unit in the late nineties, all I needed was a pond pump and a large bucket of gravel with some filter floss that needed to be periodically changed out, but that was a two thousand gallon pond with four turtles, not a fifty five gallon tank with one turtle). I then take the relatively dry tank, wipe down the outsides with a towel I hang outside and designate for this sole purpose, then move it back to the stand. Before doing this, I wipe off any dust that may have accrued over the past month. Once the tank is back in place, I drag the hose inside, have my brother hold the hose, then refill the tank until he shouts back to me that I need to shut off the water. I then prime the filter, add a dechlorinator, and my southern paint returns to the tank.

This system has worked well for me for years. When I was a kid, I used to do the bucket to bathtub thing, but I just got tired of it, tired to the point that once my turtles were big enough, I set them up in an outdoor pond. I've since given those turtles away due to a move, but one day my dad and I discovered the ease with which a siphon can remove the back breaking labor of water changes for indoor aquaria.

T.G.
 

Yellow Turtle01

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Oh no, not the bathtub, my mom would kill me! Toilet :D
Wow, that sounds like it works really well. I have not yet bought a Python, but in my defense I haven't been to the store yet :p I use vinegar for washing (watered down) it takes the minerals off the sides real well!
Two thousand gallons is a lot of water... bit harder to clean ;) But man, I bet the turtles that live are in heaven... Thank you :D
 

tglazie

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Yeah, that pond was huge. 12x5 with a step bottom ranging from two to four feet. I mean, I could wade into the thing, and the level would go above my waist. I would have built one at my new place, but the soil on the north side of San Antonio is an excavator's nightmare (giant limestone boulders, everywhere you can put a shovel; judging by the root spread on my mulberry trees, this is a problem across the entire property). And I don't know of any materials strong enough to hold in 2000 gallons that aren't prohibitively expensive or toxic and messy (the idea of pouring concrete within feet of my tortoise enclosures just didn't appeal to me, nor did working with concrete in the hot San Antonio sun). I thought about using one of those cattle troughs, but none of them are large enough, and incorporating a land area presents more than its fair share of challenges. Size really does matter in the south Texas heat, given the fact that something the depth of a kiddie pool will get to ninety five degrees in a matter of hours in the hot sun, and placing the pool beneath the shade of trees presents the trouble of constant leaf litter clogging the filtration system. I found with the old pond that adequate depth combined with a shade cloth canopy over half the pond kept the water temps in the reasonable upper seventies.

T.G.
 
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