Leafy Contradiction

Hey Everyone.
Today I went to the aquarium to look for a hose/tubing that will go from my pump to the tank. It's the last piece I needed in order to finish my overflow trickle filter. All I have to do now is attach the check valve and its pretty much finished. I am hoping to finish it this week. While I was at the aquarium I found a few fake plants. Some are the fabric type of plants (which I prefer) and some are plastic. The fabric plants were originally $20 but because they were broken I got them for 50% off. They still work fine though. The only broken part was that three groups of leafy plants were attached with cement at the base and the base was broken apart, leaving one leafy group apart from the other two. I think its much better though because I got to put the plant in two different locations. The other type of plant I got were plastic. I usually hate plastic plants because they look really fake and cheesy but I think you wont really be able to tell if the plants were hidden near the back of the tank. I also got these for 50% off. I Love the fake plants in the tank now. The fake plants make the tank look so lively! It's contradicting but it works. haha.
Today I decided to let the turtles have some variety in their diet. I threw in a pinch of the ciclid food, turtle food, koi food, and bottom feeding food. The turtles ate every single one of them. I read that when feeding turtles it is nice to have variety. The turtles did seem to enjoy it very much. They swam around and got every single piece. They are usually shy eating in front of me but are warming up to me quickly. I try to drop the food in the tank when both of them are watching so they know that I am the one giving them the food and to not fear me.

(picture on the left is the female turtle. She's very camera shy so its always really hard to get a nice picture of her so here's the first decent one) The tank is starting to clear up nicely. I think just a few more days and it will be crystal clear. I am trying to think of a method of clearing up the tank faster but honestly I think patience is key. I went to get more fishes today. I said I wanted ciclids but I decided to wait. I am thinking twice about getting them because I don't want them chomping on my cory catfishes. The ciclid gets very large as well and I just don't think I want such a large fish in the tank. I am thinking about getting some neon tetras or guppies instead. I think I will wait a month before adding fishes. I want the water to clear up and I want to make sure the tank is cycled before adding more expensive fishes. I am just very grateful that my $5/each corys are still alive. The minnows I do not really care for since they were 15cent each and they are just food for the turtles.

Update: "API Quick Start" is AMAZING

Hey Guys.

Today I feel so much better about my turtle habitat even though the overflow is still not fixed. I need to go out and buy silicon to adhere the check valve so it's still not 100% finished. Almost there though. I didn't have a filter running for a whole day since the overflow wasn't working and I bought 20 more minnows to add to the tank. While I was bobbing the bag full of minnows in the tank, more than half of the minnows died inside the bag. The turtle had a fish feast but the remaining dead minnows made my tank really cloudy and gross. So today I emptied out 90% of the water and put in brand new water. I put on a regular filter for fish tanks just for filteration until I finish my overflow. I put some priming de-chlorinating solution in to make the water livable for the fishes and turtle. 

I bought a bottle of API Quick Start solution and it is amazing! It basically neutralizes ammonia by adding natural nitrifying bacteria inside the tank. None of the fishes died when I did the 90% water change which is very nice. The water is getting clearer every hour. Im sure in a few days the water will be crystal clear. It is necessary to have a filter running when using QUICK START from API because if you do not have a filter, the water will get very murky and very thick. Once I have my overflow running, it will have better filteration since the pot scrubbers (cheap replacement for bioballs) will have enough surface area to constantly have living nitrifying bacteria growing around and inside of it. I am very excited about my tank now. I can finally see inside the tank and can see where the turtles are hiding. I cant seem to see inside the tank when the UVB and heat lamp is off though. I think this is because the background of my TRUVU tank is black and makes the tank look really dark. I will probably put a background on in the near future, just to give it a natural or realistic feel. The black just makes the tank look dark and gloomy.

The water hasn't warmed up completely so the turtles like to hang out on top of the heater. I am thinking about adding some african ciclids  to the tank. The turtles are way too slow to catch the fish anyways so I think it will make the tank look more lively. I will be going to the store tomorrow to pick them up. This will be the true test to see if the API Quick Start really works since it says its perfect for adding fishes to brand new water that has been de-chlorinated. I hope the african ciclids leave the cory catfishes alone. I really enjoy the cory catfishes. They are getting so big now.

I took this picture of my pair of turtles. The one on the left is the female. She's staring at me, confused of the camera. She is usually camera shy and only comes out during feeding. There's a few Bottom feeding pellets laying around her and the male (on the right) has a pellet in his mouth. The fishes come by and try to eat the pellets as well since they are too scared to go to the surface and get the fish flakes. I think this is okay because, although I have cory catfishes inside the tank, the minnows also help with cleaning the left overs on the bottom of the tank. It's funny though. The minnows swim along side with the cory catfishes. I think this is because they are very scared of being eaten by the turtles so they like to stay in a pack with the corys for security. The cory catfishes keep running away from them but the minnows keep following them no matter what. haha. Its pretty cute. After the release of the 20 minnows, all have died off. Including a couple of the original minnows. I think this is because of the high amount of ammonia once the fishes started swimming around. (fishes release ammonia which high amounts of ammonia is fatal to all fishes). I only have 2 minnows left and all 5 of the initial cory catfishes. I think the cory catfishes are very hardy. Even through drastic temperature change from water changes, they still are all alive and swimming around restlessly. I will be getting more corys for sure.

I found a lot of old fish food laying around the house. We used to have Koi fishes as well as ciclids so I decided to let the turtles have them since variety is key when feeding turtles. They seem to enjoy every type of food I give them whether it be pellets for fishes or live fishes. I am so glad they are not too picky. I still want to try and give them some scallops and other types of sea food. I need to go to the grocery store and find a bag of mixed sea food that is unsalted. But for now, they seem to really enjoy the pellets, even if its sinking to the bottom or floating up at the surface of the water.

Breeding Fishes

My pump from ebay came in yesterday. I thought it was going to come in today so I didn't buy the filter medium for the filter. I finished my new PVC overflow the other day with the 3/4 inch PVC instead and I am so glad that I did. I first tested my new pump with the 1/2 inch PVC overflow I initially made and the pump was way too strong for the overflow. Water was coming in way faster than the water was going out so this would flood my tank within a few minutes. I then put my 3/4 inch PVC overflow in and this overflow was stronger than the pump.
When making a PVC overflow, it is necessary for the overflow to be stronger than the pump. This is because the overflow must be able to handle the amount of water being put in. It is okay that the pump is much weaker than the overflow because then the water will not over fill the tank and only the amount of water being put into the tank will go down the overflow without over flooding the tank. Its a little complicating and hard to imagine but once you do some tests and trials, you will understand this.
So my PVC overflow works well with my new pump. I am so glad I didnt have to make a larger overflow because the 3/4 inch is already big and visible enough. Today I will finish off my filter by buying an output tube, filter medium, and plastic pot scrubbers (as a cheap alternative for bioballs). Once I buy all the materials and put it together I will do a DIY post of the overflow and the filter.
So I decided to breed some fishes for my turtles to eat. I know that minnows are the cheapest but I've never had experience breeding minnows so Im a little worried about doing this. I feel like it is much harder because you must raise eggs and such. I've bred guppies before and I find those the easiest since they give birth instead of laying eggs. Guppies, on the other hand, are much more expensive. Most of the time they die really quickly and I find that it is such a waste of money. I can not decide which is the best choice. I guess which ever breeds the fastest will be the best. I would like to have enough fishes where I can feed my turtles a fish each every other day.
I took some minnows out of the tank and put them in a separate container. I put a PVC tube inside, hoping they will lay their eggs inside. I will try to breed the minnows and if I feel that nothing is happening, I will resort to guppies.

The turtles are starting to really warm up to me. They now shallow water bask in front of me without running away when I look at them. Of course they will always be a little skittish and duck when I come near the tank but once I sit down and they see that I am no threat, they will then bask in front of me. Today I fed them some floating fish pellets. I wanted them to get used to eating floating pellets since I want to add turtle pellets to their diet. Since I had ciclid pellets and koi pellets laying around my house, I threw some in and the turtles immediately came up to eat them. I think I will go to the pet store tomorrow and pick up some turtle pellets. I fed the turtles pellets one by one today. I wanted the turtles to see me throwing the pellets in as they ate them. I feel like they will warm up to me faster once they realize that I am the one giving them food. Instead of just throwing it in without them looking and them thinking the food is coming from heaven. haha. I try my best not to disturb them. Even though I want to pick them up and hold them, I tell myself to leave them alone so they dont become scared of me and see me as a threat. Hopefully they will be 100% comfortable with me very soon. I just hate when they hide from me and I have to wait 20minutes for them to finally come out and take a breather, just to run back under the wood.

PVC Overflow FAIL

Today I did a partial water change on the turtle tank. I was getting sick of seeing the cloudy water and the water was also starting to tan from the wood that is inside the tank. I siphoned out half the water and put in brand new water that was dechlorinated and treated. The tank was at about 80degrees before I changed the water and dropped down significantly. So tonight I turned off all the lamps but kept a heat lamp on. Hopefully by tomorrow the water will warm up so the turtles dont get too cold.
I tried to finish my PVC Overflow today. Of course I wanted to make sure it worked and ran properly before doing a DIY post on it. I bought 1/2 inch PVC, PVC connectors, One way valve, and tubing. These are the materials needed to make this overflow. I've made a PVC overflow before so I already had a PVC cutter but I couldn't find my PVC cement. I then thought "maybe I can seal everything with a hot glue gun." Boy was I wrong. Water didn't leak but air was getting inside the overflow, making the overflow a complete fail. Water was rising in the tank, decreasing in the sump, and water was not going down the overflow. If I did not catch onto this sooner, the tank would have flooded and my room would have been a mess.
I did start building my sump today though. I got a pack of 5 shoe box containers from target and cut off the bottom of each box. Then I drilled holes on the lid (for trickling). In all, I stacked four out of the five shoe boxes. This isnt the sturdiest trickle filter but I plan on using silicon to keep them all together. I like this idea because when I need to change the filter medium, I can just unlatch the layer and clean. Then put the lid right back on. It is pretty convenient. Using a plastic drawer would be even more convenient but the cheapest plastic drawer was $15 where as the shoe boxes were $5. Also, the plastic drawer would not fit into my 20gallon tank and I'de probably have to buy a larger tub which is more money to be spent and more space taken up. The Trickle filter I made is sitting in my 20gallon long tank that I had. (I will post better pictures of the anatomy of the filter once I get all the filter mediums) I ordered a pump on ebay for $20. It is a 370GPH submersible pump. (link at the end of post)
I now realize that my 1/2 inch PVC overflow will not be able to handle the 370GPH out take. So tomorrow I will be heading back to home depot and remaking my overflow with a 3/4 inch PVC instead. I wont forget to buy the PVC cement this time. haha. Hopefully I get the pump this week so I can finish my filter system. I cant wait for it to be up and running. Then I can take better pictures of my turtles.

OH! I forgot to mention. I haven't thought of any names for the turtles yet. I have to think of something unique. Hahha. Right now, they are nicknamed Koopa and Troopa. haha

Link for 370GPH pump on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261032997754?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I Anger Myself

Today I started building my PVC Over-flow part of my filter but I only bought the PVC and the PVC connectors so I can't make the DIY post yet. Once I get the other pieces I will make a post on how to make a PVC over-flow.
Today I really made myself angry. The cloudy water finally started clearing up (it took 3 days to clear up) but for some reason I wasn't 100% happy with the arrangement of the wood in my tank so I took all the wood out and started moving the sand around. This caused the whole tank to become cloudy again so I can not see inside the tank and can not see where I am placing the wood. So now I am feeling worse about the
arrangement of the wood than I did before. Sometimes I feel like just taking all the water out and putting fresh water inside but that is not a good idea since 100% fresh water may kill your fishes. So I will be patient and let the water settle again and in a week I will do a partial water change. Hopefully this will dilute the water a little since it is stained tan from the wood.
(picture: Male on the left. Female on the right)

I pretty much give up tonight. I will let the water settle before doing more to the tank since I can't see a damn thing. So, sadly, I do not have any new pictures to post since I can not see inside the tank but I will post pictures of the turtles when I first unboxed them.
(picture: Female on the left. Male on the right)

The Turtle Habitat

Hello Friends.

I got my turtles three days ago but had the setup done way before they arrived. I was initially going to keep them in a 20gallon long but found a great deal on craigslist for a 40 gallon truvu (acrylic) tank and it came with a filter (which I do not use), large pieces of either bog wood or some other type of heavy sinking wood, and other floating drift woods. So I think I will turn my 20 gallon tank into a sump. I will make another post on how I will make that tank into a sump and my experience with making my pvc over-flow. It'll be like a DIY post.

I ordered my Three striped mud turtles 4 days ago from a breeder I found on Kingsnake.com. Link will be provided at the end of this post. I requested one female and one male. I wanted at least one to be very dark with bright stripes. The very same day I paid for my turtles, the breeder shipped out my turtles and I got them the very next day. I was pretty excited and woke up immediately to un-box them. I couldn't figure out which one was male and which one was female and at this age and size you really cant be sure but I think I have a general idea. The larger one is a male and the smaller one a female. Some may tell me that the male is supposed to be smaller but they are not full grown yet so the female will probably out grow him in the future. But as for now, the male is a quarter of an inch larger than the female. The female is 2 inches and the male is 2 1/4 inches. (male pictured above and below)

The female is BEAUTIFUL. She is the dark tangerine that I asked for. The male is much lighter and has more brown on his shell. Both look healthy though and I guess that's all that matters. At first they were very shy. Especially since I kept taking them out of the tank to check their genders. But after 3 days, I can proudly say they have warmed up to me a lot and now are not afraid to eat in front of me or take fresh minnows out of my tongs. They sure are forgiving! I am not sure of their age, which is saddening but a instagram from of mine has a baurii and he is 9 months old and 3/4 of an inch larger than my turtles. So I am guessing they are around 6 months old (could be less). But I will assume they are 6 months old.

In their 40 gallon tank, I have 5 cory catfishes (which I will be adding more in the future) and a bunch of minnows. I take a fish net and scoop two and feed each turtle one by hand every other day (so far i've done this twice). So far they are liking this. The turtles are too slow to catch the fishes on their own, which may be a good thing! Because then I can add much prettier fishes without worrying about them getting eaten off one by one. haha. I didnt buy commercial turtle food for the turtles though because all turtle foods float and mud turtles like to scavenge on the bottom for their food so I bought them bottom feeder fish pellets and will incorporate fish, scallop, and other seafood into their diet. I only see the turtles come up to the surface for air. Sometimes they will sit on the wood and "shallow-water-bask" but most of the time they are near the bottom of the tank. So I need to find food that will sink so they can eat comfortably. I know that mud turtles are poor swimmers so I want to make sure they live as naturally as possible.
I will be working on the PVC Over-flow part of my new filter tomorrow so I will post a DIY on how to make that tomorrow.
Breeder Link: http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=131&de=982859