Pet Turtle : Habitat Decorations

A lot of turtle literature suggests keeping the turtle tank devoid of any gravel/rocks/shells/tank decorations. This is primarily for the turtle owner's convenience, as more tank decorations imply more surface area and nooks for waste to get accumulated. This would lead to increased maintenance as each of these decorations would need to be cleaned weekly to ensure that your tank water is fresh and clean.

However, we feel that your turtle deserves a more "homely" habitat. After all would you like to stay in room with just four plane walls?

Therefore, we recommend the addition of some tank decorations, so that your turtle can "enjoy' its habitat! A pleasantly decorated turtle tank would also provide "ornamental" value in your house. Decorating a turtle tank requires deep and systematic thinking and visualization of water and land space in three-dimension, somewhat similar to designing the interiors of your own home.

Tank decorations can be broadly categorized into 6 types. We will discuss the merits, demerits and consequences of each. This should enable you to make an informed judgement about the kind of decorations that you would like to have in your turtle tank.

Key Don'ts for tank decorations:
� Never pick up something from the road/park/river/beach etc and put into the tank without sterilization
� Never put any decoration into the tank that has a diameter less than 2cm
� Avoid any decorations that have sharp, hard pointed edges
� Avoid any enclosure kind of decoration under which the turtle can get stuck!

A thumb-rule, remember: the more complex the decoration the more time you will have to spend on maintaining the tank. So decorate wisely�

The 6 types of decorations are mentioned below. Each has a different maintenance/cleaning process. Click on the type you want to know more about, though we suggest you go through all so that you get a better idea.
� Gravel
� Stones
� Shells
� Driftwood
� Plants
� Commercial Decorations