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Gear for Your Red-Eared Slider
Before bringing your slider into your home, purchase everything you require for its care. You must decide on a housing setup and provide sources for heating, lighting, and humidity, as well as the various furnishings the enclosure requires. The following are the basic must-have supplies.
Tank
Because sliders are aquatic turtles, they require quarters that can comfortably contain a large mass of water. A standard glass aquarium of the appropriate size for an adult slider is your best option. Glass aquariums are available in a variety of shapes and sizes at any pet store, and they are relatively inexpensive. They’re also easy to clean—an important consideration when keeping a slider.
A plastic container can also make an acceptable
enclosure for your red-eared slider. Plastic is lighter, cheaper, and more durable than glass, and it’s fairly easy to clean. However, most plastic containers can melt under the hot lights you may use to create the proper temperature for your turtle.
If you choose a plastic container, any basking or full-spectrum lights you use must be a safe distance above the enclosure. This distance depends on the wattage of the bulb, the type of fixture you’re using, the strength of the plastic, and the temperature of the enclosure.
Size
Depending on the size and number of sliders you plan to keep, the best tank to purchase could be 55–125 gallons (208–473 L) in size. Choose a tank that’s wider than it is tall because wider tanks provide your turtle with more room to swim.
A good rule of thumb is to buy the largest tank you can afford and have room for in your home, even if your slider is only a baby when you purchase it. Sliders grow quickly and can reach adult size in just three or four years. Starting with a large tank will keep you from having to replace your aquarium frequently as your pet grows.
Lid
Unlike with many other herps, it’s not necessary to put a lid on your slider’s tank to prevent it from escaping—most sliders are unable to climb out of a standard enclosure. However, if you keep your slider in a room where cold drafts and breezes may be present, keeping a lid on your tank is an important and useful way to maintain the proper temperature.
A variety of lids is available for any tank. Some have fine mesh screening, others use thin hardware cloth, and still others have a lid that flips open and includes a built-in light. The most important feature a turtle-tank lid must have is the ability to allow direct rays of light to reach the turtle, so a sturdy mesh lid is ideal.
Placement
Determining where to place your tank is a major decision and the first one you should make when establishing your setup. Take the following into consideration when choosing a location for your slider tank.
- Solid, durable surface: Including substrate and decorations, an aquarium can easily weigh 10 pounds per gallon (more than 1 kg per liter), which translates to 400 pounds (181 kg) for a 40-gallon (151-L) tank.
- Access to electricity: With filters, lighting, and heat all necessary to create the proper environment for your turtle, you’ll need to use several outlets to operate your tank, and ground-fault circuit interrupters (available at your local hardware store) should protect all of them.
- Nearby water source: Keeping your tank near a water source—and ideally, a drain—makes aquarium upkeep much easier.
- Distance from windows: Placing your aquarium near a sunlit window promotes lush growths of unwanted algae and overheats the water, especially in the summer. If your turtle is unable to get out of the sun, the increased temperature may kill it.
Substrate
Your aquarium doesn’t need a substrate, which can actually make the tank harder to clean. However, while tanks with almost no decoration are easy to maintain, some keepers feel that they look too sterile and may stress the turtle because it’s not living in a natural-looking environment.
If you choose to include a substrate in your slider’s tank, a thin, loosely packed layer of aquarium stones is a suitable choice.
Land Area
Your aquarium must include an area that’s totally out of the water and on which the turtle can dry off and sun itself. Worn driftwood, cork-bark floats, or smooth, flat rocks work well because they’re not likely to rub or scratch your turtle’s shell as your turtle climbs out of the water. The size and depth you need for this land area depend on the size of your turtle.
This area of land in your aquarium should serve as your basking site—a section of the terrarium with an incandescent light directed on it to make it warmer than the rest
of the enclosure. Position your light over the rock or wood you use as a land area to simulate the sun, and keep a thermometer at the site to ensure that it doesn’t become too hot for your slider.
How to Construct a Basking Site
You can set up a land area in your aquarium by walling off a section of the tank with silicone aquarium sealant and appropriately sized pieces of glass or plastic. For example, you can use piece of plastic inserted vertically or diagonally to wall off one end of the tank, but more intricate arrangements, such as a U shape or a suspended island in the center of the tank, are also possible.
Provide your turtle access to the land area by placing rocks, cork floats, or plastic ramps. If you choose to do so, you can set up your aquarium so that the land area is accessible from both sides but also passable from underneath.
Filtration
A filter system is a necessity for most aquatic turtle setups, and a number of different filters are available for use with sliders. These filters are usually adaptations of the same types of filter systems used with fish. There are three basic aquarium filtration methods:
- Mechanical: This filter removes matter, such as excrement or uneaten food, in the aquarium. The water passes through a sponge or floss medium inside the filter and then flows back into the aquarium, capturing these waste particles.
-
Biological: The
most important filter in your aquarium, a biological filter is a special bacterial colony growing in a medium through which aquarium water passes. Some good bacteria eat ammonia produced by the turtle, changing it to nitrite, which is eaten by other bacteria, turning it into far less harmful nitrate. Biofiltration bacteria must attach to a surface, and porous materials, such as sponges and lava rocks, provide an abundant surface area on which good bacteria can grow.
- Chemical: Chemical filtration removes unwanted substances from the water by chemical means. The most common medium is activated carbon, but resins are also available to remove specific contaminants, such as phosphate or ammonia. A chemical filter won’t remove all the pollutants in the water, however, and must be used in conjunction with other filter types.
Choosing a Filter
You can choose from a variety of commercially available filters. Some are basic and only provide one means of filtration, while others combine more than one or all three—these are the ideal filters for your aquarium. You want a filter that can keep up with the large amount of waste your slider produces and that has an abundant surface area for colonization by good bacteria. The filter should also be easy enough to maintain that you won’t dread having to clean it (which may cause you to do so less frequently).
In general, the main filter types you can use in your slider tank are either canister or undergravel filters. Both rely on mechanical and biological filtration to purify the water.
- Canister filter: A self-contained unit that holds materials designed to remove particles of debris. A pump forces the water through this material and then returns it to the tank.
- Undergravel filter: This type of filter uses gravel lining the bottom of the tank as an initial filter, pulling water through the gravel and then through an underlying plastic meshwork.
Canister filters, either submerged or placed outside the tank, are generally best for slider aquariums. Undergravel filters can become clogged quickly due to the large amount of waste material that turtles are capable of producing. In addition, turtles can interfere with an underground filter by digging around in the gravel layer the filter relies on to function properly.
Filter Care
Clean your filters once every month, but don’t clean them completely. A perfectly clean tank with an immaculate filter is actually not healthy for your pet: without the good bacteria that can grow on filters and other surfaces, toxins such as ammonia are more likely to thrive in the water.
Mechanical filters require more thorough cleaning so that the filter doesn’t get clogged and leave excess waste in the water, producing more toxins than the good bacteria in the tank can handle. If your filter contains a cartridge, take the cartridge out and dispose of it, then replace it with a new cartridge that has first been run under treated water (water with chlorine and chloramines removed with commercially available chemicals) at the same temperature as the water in the tank. Clean only one filter at a time in old aquarium water to remove as few beneficial bacteria from the tank as possible.
Lighting
Turtles kept indoors require a light source during the day. Use an incandescent bulb to provide both heat and light, and supply an
ultraviolet light, which your slider requires to synthesize vitamin D3, a nutrient that promotes healthy bones.
Incandescent Light
Incandescent bulbs provide a high level of light in a concentrated area and also act as a heat source. In many turtle setups, incandescent bulbs in an aluminum clip light or a similar sort of spotlight direct a high level of light and supplemental heat to a particular spot in the tank, which serves as a basking site for your slider.
Focus the light on the land area of your terrarium to encourage your slider to bask. This allows the turtle to move in and out of its hot spot at will in order to regulate its body temperature. Most hobbyists use a 50-watt (or higher) incandescent bulb to bask their turtles, depending on the size of the terrarium and the light’s distance from the terrarium. Try different arrangements until you determine the best setup for your slider, but keep your basking site’s temperature around 90–95°F (32–35°C).
Ultraviolet Light
Red-eared sliders and other herps need regular exposure to ultraviolet light to thrive. To provide your turtle with UV light, purchase a fluorescent light that produces ultraviolet B waves (the waves that actually allow animals to synthesize vitamin D) and that is made specifically for use with reptiles. The light should run across the entire length of the cage.
All fluorescent bulbs degrade with time, so expect to replace the tubes about once every six months or so. Refer to the manufacturer’s specifications to determine the estimated life of your bulbs. Also, make sure there is no glass or plastic between your turtle and the light source—these materials block the beneficial UVB wavelengths.
Photoperiod
Provide your slider with a light cycle, or photoperiod, that lasts 12–14 hours a day throughout most of the year, shortened to about 8 hours during the winter—the same length of time your turtle would experience light when in the wild. If you’re inconsistent with how long you leave the lights on each day, your turtle may become confused, refuse to eat, or even become ill from the stress. Automatic timers, which you can find in any hardware store, make photoperiod regulation simple.
Heating
Your red-eared slider requires an average temperature of 75°F (24°C) and will subsequently require some sort of heat source for both the air and the water inside the tank. Most keepers use overhead heat lamps, submersible water heaters, or undertank heating elements. Combining a number of these different approaches often provides the best heating option for your turtle.
Regardless of how you choose to heat your enclosure, install thermometers to measure the temperature of the air and the water inside the enclosure (as well as at your basking site), and keep an eye on them to ensure that your tank remains at the optimal temperature at all times.
Submersible Heaters
The most common method of heating water in a turtle tank is with a fully submersible heater with a built-in thermostat that allows you to alter the temperature as you see fit. If you have a particularly active or aggressive slider, it may be necessary to wall off the heater to prevent your pet from damaging or breaking it. Encasing the heater in wire mesh is probably the best way to do this.
A submersible heater is relatively inexpensive and available in a variety of sizes and wattages. Use this type of heater only in a glass aquarium, however—plastic tanks may melt or deform from the heat.
Undertank Heaters
Heating elements that fit under a tank and warm from the bottom generally come in two forms: a thin plastic sheet with flat heating elements or a thicker plastic mat with
embedded heating elements. The first kind attaches directly to the bottom of the tank and works well only with glass aquariums. The second kind is often referred to as a pig blanket because of its original use on the floors of barns to warm livestock. It is sturdily constructed from heavy-duty plastics, and most types of turtle tanks can sit directly on top of this heater.
Both types of undertank heaters should have a built-in thermostat that allows you to adjust the temperature. Don’t purchase a heater that doesn’t have this feature because you could overheat your slider.
Heating Lamps
Using basking lights or heating lamps is another good way to heat part of the terrarium and provide light for viewing your red-eared slider. Placing a bulb over one end of the terrarium creates an excellent basking spot, but the wattage of bulb you need depends on the size of your terrarium. Incandescent bulbs provide the warmest, brightest light and therefore make the best choice for a basking lamp.
Ceramic heat emitters are a good choice for heating large terrariums. Heat emitters are made of thick ceramic molded around a heating coil in the shape of a lightbulb, and they generate a great deal of heat without casting light (which creates too much heat in small terrariums). Ceramic emitters screw into a socket, much like a lightbulb does. To prevent the emitter from melting the socket and possibly starting a fire, use a ceramic socket, which you can find in hardware stores and some pet shops.
Decorations
Keepers limit the number of decorations they include in their turtle aquariums. Tank decorations increase the maintenance required to keep the water clean—which is already more than that of an enclosure inhabited by fish or many other herps—because they create inaccessible areas where dirt can accumulate more easily. Decorations also require careful arrangement: if your slider becomes trapped underwater by poorly designed tank furnishings, it can drown before you even notice its plight.
Plants
If you don’t like the look of a bare tank, you can add some decoration to your turtle’s environment in the form of
live plants.
The following live plants make suitable additions to your aquarium. All of them should be readily available at local pet stores.
- Anacharis
- Aquatic grasses
- Duckweed
- Water hyacinth
- Water lettuce
- Water lilies
Some keepers use ceramic or clay pots for their rooted aquatic plants because both can stay underwater and provide protection against turtles that tend to dig into and nibble on the vegetation. Floating plants such as duckweed work especially well in turtle aquariums because there’s no chance of a turtle uprooting them. Your slider will occasionally eat the plants, so expect to replace them regularly.
Tank Maintenance
Even an excellent filtration system can’t replace the need for consistent, thorough cleaning and maintenance of your red-eared slider’s enclosure. Keeping your tank clean is crucial to your turtle’s health and well-being.
Daily Care
Perform these tasks every day to maintain proper environmental conditions for your slider:
- Make sure that all lights, heaters, filters, and thermostats are working correctly.
- Survey the temperature of various spots throughout the tank.
- Remove any uneaten food or other waste products.
- Examine your slider for signs of illness.
Weekly Cleaning
Once a week, thoroughly clean and disinfect the enclosure with a solution of 10% bleach and water. Rinse very thoroughly until no scent of bleach remains, and allow the cage to air-dry before putting your slider back inside. Never use ammonia-based cleaners in or near your slider’s cage—the risk of poisoning it is too great.
You may also want to rinse off the slider carefully and sponge down its carapace (the top part of the shell)
to remove algal growth and dirt before placing the slider back in a clean tank. Never use soap or bleach directly on the slider.
How to Maintain Water Quality
Quality filters do an excellent job of purifying water in a
slider tank, but your turtle produces an enormous amount of waste, more than a filter designed for use with aquarium fish is able to handle. Unlike a snake or a lizard, which may not soil a clean tank for a week or so, a slider placed in a newly cleaned tank will quickly foul it—most likely by eliminating in the water. Changing the water regularly and frequently removes impurities that even filters won’t remove.
How to Change Your Slider’s Water
An excellent tool for hobbyists to use is a simple water changer that serves as a two-way conduit between a sink and a tank. To change your slider’s tank water with one of these items:
- Make sure that the temperature of the water going into the tank is the same as that of the water going out. If an adjustment is needed, go to the sink and modify the temperature accordingly.
- Attach the device to the faucet and turn on the water, which will draw water from the tank and down the drain.
- When the tank has been emptied to the desired level, twist the device’s connector to reverse the flow and send fresh tap water to the tank.
- While the tank is filling, pour a conditioner that removes chlorine and chloramines directly into the stream of water entering the tank. (This step is not necessary if you have well water or if you run your water through a chemical filter.)
You can also change the water in your slider’s tank simply by using a siphon and a bucket. However, this method takes longer, which can make you reluctant to do it (and result in less frequent water changes). A faucet water-change system makes it much easier to keep up with this vital part of tank maintenance.
Waste Management
As mentioned earlier, turtles often eliminate in their water, and the amount of waste they produce is often too much for even a quality filter to handle. Any food that your turtle doesn’t finish eating also ends up in the water, where it
decomposes and pollutes the tank. If you don’t keep the water clean, these waste products cause it to look and smell bad and also pose a health risk for your turtle.
The best way to deal with excess waste in your turtle tank is to prevent the appearance of waste in the first place. You can eliminate a majority of the normal amount of waste material by feeding your turtle outside of its enclosure. To do this, fill a plastic container (a cat litter tray works well for a small- or medium-sized turtle) with water and place the food into the container, along with your turtle. Once
the turtle has finished eating, put it back in its tank and dispose of the dirty water. This not only eliminates the presence of food debris but also reduces the amount of fecal material in the enclosure, as turtles often eliminate immediately after feeding.
| Text & Photos Copyright © 2007 TFH Publications, Inc. | Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
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