- Joined
- Apr 23, 2015
- Messages
- 238
Hello everyone!
Over the last couple of months I've been working on building a plywood aquarium to house southern painted turtles. I don't know if this belongs here or in enclosures since I don't have the turtles yet, but I thought I'd go ahead and start a thread.
It began with the wood, 3/4" birch plywood, cut up at Home Depot.
I assembled it with wood glue and self-drilling screws spaced about 2" apart. You can see the fit isn't perfect, I blame the Home Depot cutting (only because I can't bring myself to blame me : D). The dimensions of the assembled box are 30" x 30" x 24" high, so this has an internal volume of 84 gallons. I only plan on filling it to about 16", which will be 56 gallons of water.
Here it is sealed with the glass windows in place. The sealant is Pond Shield epoxy, which is an aquarium safe sealant used in a lot of home built aquariums. The windows are roughly 18" x 27" with rounded edges, bought from a local glassworks for $20 bucks each. The seams and windows are all sealed with silicon.
No leaks on the first try! This is filled to the final depth of ~16" deep. I bought a CF400-UV canister filter to keep up with the turtles, and a 200W tank heater to keep them warm enough. I will certainly be adding a lot more decorations and live plants (even if they get eaten). I plan on making a basking dock out of large rocks secured to a PVC base with a ramp, as well as elevating the driftwood pieces above the water line so they can dry off on those if they would like.
Last picture : ). Just a lower angle so you can see the windows and bracing on the back side to prevent bowing.
Still to do:
fit an acrylic lid to and cut holes in it for a basking lamp. I was thinking a 100W MVB about 12" up, or however high it takes to get a 92-95F basking spot on the rock. A 22" shop light to provide extra light so I can see them, and they can see around in the water. Both lights will be on a timer, probably set to 12 hour cycles.
Obviously its not going to sit in the middle of the floor. I already constructed an aquarium stand out of 4x4's and plywood in the corner of the living room, so I'll need to drain the water and move it to the stand and refill it. Speaking of draining, I still need to drill port holes for easy filling and an inlet/outlet for the filter.
I was thinking of using a bedding or large pond rocks, too big for the turtles to eat, mostly because I've never been a fan of sand, although I'm open to leaving the bottom bare if people recommend that.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something else in the to do list, but I can't think of what right now.
I was planning on getting two hatchling/yearling southern painted turtles from either turtlesandtortoises.com or turtlesupply.com, but if anyone has a compelling reason to only get 1 I am certainly open to that.
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think. : )
Over the last couple of months I've been working on building a plywood aquarium to house southern painted turtles. I don't know if this belongs here or in enclosures since I don't have the turtles yet, but I thought I'd go ahead and start a thread.
It began with the wood, 3/4" birch plywood, cut up at Home Depot.
I assembled it with wood glue and self-drilling screws spaced about 2" apart. You can see the fit isn't perfect, I blame the Home Depot cutting (only because I can't bring myself to blame me : D). The dimensions of the assembled box are 30" x 30" x 24" high, so this has an internal volume of 84 gallons. I only plan on filling it to about 16", which will be 56 gallons of water.
Here it is sealed with the glass windows in place. The sealant is Pond Shield epoxy, which is an aquarium safe sealant used in a lot of home built aquariums. The windows are roughly 18" x 27" with rounded edges, bought from a local glassworks for $20 bucks each. The seams and windows are all sealed with silicon.
No leaks on the first try! This is filled to the final depth of ~16" deep. I bought a CF400-UV canister filter to keep up with the turtles, and a 200W tank heater to keep them warm enough. I will certainly be adding a lot more decorations and live plants (even if they get eaten). I plan on making a basking dock out of large rocks secured to a PVC base with a ramp, as well as elevating the driftwood pieces above the water line so they can dry off on those if they would like.
Last picture : ). Just a lower angle so you can see the windows and bracing on the back side to prevent bowing.
Still to do:
fit an acrylic lid to and cut holes in it for a basking lamp. I was thinking a 100W MVB about 12" up, or however high it takes to get a 92-95F basking spot on the rock. A 22" shop light to provide extra light so I can see them, and they can see around in the water. Both lights will be on a timer, probably set to 12 hour cycles.
Obviously its not going to sit in the middle of the floor. I already constructed an aquarium stand out of 4x4's and plywood in the corner of the living room, so I'll need to drain the water and move it to the stand and refill it. Speaking of draining, I still need to drill port holes for easy filling and an inlet/outlet for the filter.
I was thinking of using a bedding or large pond rocks, too big for the turtles to eat, mostly because I've never been a fan of sand, although I'm open to leaving the bottom bare if people recommend that.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something else in the to do list, but I can't think of what right now.
I was planning on getting two hatchling/yearling southern painted turtles from either turtlesandtortoises.com or turtlesupply.com, but if anyone has a compelling reason to only get 1 I am certainly open to that.
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think. : )