How will water changes in my turtle tank affect aquatic plants?
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at
5:14 am
I have a slider turtle in a 29 gal. tank. Once a month I do 100% water change. I clean everything with vinager and water. I want to get some Anacharis for the tank. I know the turtle will more than likely eat at it but, will the water changes & cleaning the tank harm the plant?
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Filed under: Water Filter System
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Cleaning the tank with vinager is a bad idea. The vinager will not kill all the bacteria. The most recommended is a 5% bleach solution. Mix 1/8 cup of bleach with a gallon of water and clean the tank with this mixture it will kill all the bacteria in the tank. Make sure you rinse it well until you can’t smell bleach any more. As far as your water changes go it could affect your plants because the PH will constantly fluctuate along with the nitrate’s. Your turtle pond is basically like a fish tank in order for plants to grow you have to keep all your levels within there respected areas. But having them in a tank with a slider I don’t think you have to worry about them lasting very long. LOL Sliders love green veggies and plants and will eat them until there gone. Some thing I used with my Turtle tanks are canister filters they cut down on the water maintance and the full water changes. Hope this helps you out and good luck with your turtle
Changing the water won’t, but getting vinegar on them will. Make sure you get rid of all traces of vinegar before you put your plants back in.
You’re right about your turtle eating them. You could grow some in a different tank and put some in with him now and then so they have some time to recover.
The important thing to remember is to know that you are not supposed to do 100% water changes. There is a good type of bacteria that breaks down waste and it takes 4 weeks for it to attain the proper level to do its job. Plants also use up some of that broken down waste but that’s if the turtle doesn’t eat the plants first. The most water that you should take out at a time is 50% no matter how bad it looks unless you want to start the cycle process all over again. During that cycling process ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates take turn climbing and dropping. This doesn’t affect the turtle much depending on the size of the tank vs. the size of the turtle. If the tank is too small then there can be issues.
A 29 gallon tank is too small for a slider in the long run. In fact it’s only good for a few months. The rule of thumb for turtles is 10 gallons per inch of shell and then another 15% for the land area. That means that if you have male you should have nothing smaller than a 90 gallon but a female would be happier in a 120 gallon. And that’s just for 1 turtle. If you make the mistake of trying to keep 2 or more together that means you’ll need a tank twice as big or bigger. Turtles aren’t social animals so I hope you just stick to the one.
The next thing to remember is that in order to keep the water clean not only do you need the right size tank but also a filter that is rater for twice as much as the size of the tank. Turtles put out a lot of waste so they need heavy duty filters. Most people use canister filters because of that and those are also easy to maintain. There are many different medias that use can use within canister filters that’ll keep the water clearer and keep you from having to do water changes so frequently.
When it comes to using vinager for cleaning you shouldn’t have to use it within the tank at all. Maybe use a 50/50 solution for cleaning off items that you take out of the tank but never anything that’s still inside the tank. Most of the time I just use hot water and a toothbrush when I’m cleaning my turtle’s landing dock.