Pet Turtle : Habitat Setup

The habitat you develop is your turtles' home. Imagine having to spend years on end in a small enclosure, and you will automatically realize the importance of creating a good turtle habitat. A good habitat has to:
• sufficiently meet the turtles lifestyle requirements
• be convenient to maintain (read clean)
• provide your turtle privacy when it wants
• and, provide ornamental value to your house.

Turtle habitats are of two types - indoor and outdoor. The indoor ones in India are generally very similar to fish aquariums/tanks, while the outdoor ones resemble garden ponds.

As we have no experience in pond habitats we will restrict our literature to indoor habitats, that can be easily accommodated in most houses. Sometime in the future when we have the luxury of a big lawn, we might develop an outdoor turtle habitat, and then we will update this literature to include that. Meanwhile there are some links that provide a lot of information on outdoor ponds. You can access these through T-linx.

Designing a turtle habitat is not as simple as purchasing a ready-made fish tank from the pet store, as it needs both a land and a water area. Turtles are avid swimmers, feeding only in water, and are religious baskers. As such, their habitat should provide enough space for a pool deep enough to comfortably swim in and a dry basking area where they can rest clear of the water and sun themselves.

It needs to be designed carefully and we recommend you think it through carefully. It's a long but exciting process during which 7 issues need to be carefully considered. These are mentioned below.

Habitat Designing Process
(This process is suggestive in nature, and basically helps you design the habitat in a systematic manner. Don't waste time generating 'display' quality diagrams or sketches, we recommend their creation only to aid your habitat visualization. Proceed with this after going through the 7 core issues thoroughly.)

When designing the habitat, start with understanding the space requirements of your pet, and generating rough dimensions (length x breadth x depth). Then identify the place where you want to keep the habitat and the space available. Merge these two to arrive at the ideal dimensions for the tank and draw a two-dimensional diagram of the habitat.

Now you have to think about the tank (water, land area, tank decorations, etc.) in three-dimensional space, trying to imagine a fat discus shaped object for your turtle and the space it would have inside the tank - both to swim and on dryland. Try to imagine its view, the obstructions that may occur in its movement, etc and accordingly design the various tank areas and place the decorations.

With the above in mind draw front, side and top views of the tank, and sketch out the tank areas and decorations. This should give you a good idea about the kind of tank and accessories you need.

Its always preferable to create the habitat in stages over 6-10 days. Start with the tank, and basic equipment. Once you get a real feel of the tank add tank accessories, fill water and run all equipment for 2-3 days to make sure everything is functioning. We would advise you introduce 2-3 guppy fishes once you have the basic habitat up and running and observe them for any sickness/disease over 3-4 days before introducing the turtles. As fish are more sensitive and react rapidly, you can modify/correct the habitat before you get the turtles. So the turtles should be the last thing you get, and not the first!

Discover the pleasure of a systematic habitat design and your turtle will reward you with lifelong company for it! But before all that, go through the following 7 issues carefully.

• Size n Structure
• Water & Land Area
• Temperature
• Water Purification
• Habitat Decorations
• Light
• Placement
• Cleaning