Requesting ideas from the hive mind

Moozillion

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Ok.
I have had Millie, my Mississippi mud turtle for a couple of years now. She is a delightful character: very responsive and curious, and her tank is in our dining room so we interact with her throughout the day. I am trying to come up with an aquarium set up that will give her the best life that and is also naturalistic and pretty for us to look at.

The issue is that Millie cannot swim at all and has to stay in just 3.5 inches of water. She had lost a foot to an unknown predator when she was first found as a tiny hatchling. The injury healed well with no intervention- her stump is covered with a layer of skin.

I have her in a 40 gallon breeder tank, on sand (that's what she would have in the wild, since she's obviously a Louisiana native species). With that shallow depth, heating has been my biggest challenge. I've got 2 small heaters- one at each end. They are both automatically set at 78*. She kept biting off pieces of the rubber cushion on the ends of the heaters, so I had to encase them in cages made of "egg crate" light diffuser. It works, but it's not at all pretty to look at. o_O

Does anyone here have any experience or ideas about heating a body of water that is 36" by 18" but only 3.5 " deep?
Thanks! :)
Mooz
 

Moozillion

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Why can't the water just be room temperature? A CHE positioned over the tank will heat up a bit of it.
We keep our house at 69* most of the time. I'm afraid that would be too cool for her?
 

Moozillion

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Toddrickfl1

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turtlesteve

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Yeah, I’d slap an under tank heating pad on it and not worry too much. Getting the water temp up to 75 or so would be fine.
 
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