WonderBart

I have not posted any articles here for a while as I've been busy with other projects and blogs but since I have some new pictures I thought I would post them up. My large angelfish in the 45 gallon tank has had large swollen lips for a few weeks now so I did some research and found out she has some kind of fungus growth on her lips. So today at lunch I went to Big Al's Aquarium Store and picked up some API Fungus Cure and will try it on the weekend and let you know how it works. As you can see in the picture above, her lips are quit large and swollen. This is the API Fungus Cure I will try this on the weekend and see if my Angelfish lips get smaller. Today I also bought these calcium blocks for my two turtles as they add calcium into their diets to build a healthy strong shell. This is a picture of one of my new Firemouth Cichlids that I bought about a month ago, they are pretty tough fish and always chase my other fish around. My Chinese algae eater and this Firemouth always have standoff's. ... Read More

Today at lunch after eating my friend and I were driving around and spotted a small pet shop that we haven't been in before. We decided to stop and walk in to check it out. We went inside and asked the clerk where the fish were held. The pleasant clerk pointed us to the back of the store to where the fish tanks were all setup. We walked to the back and started looking at the different fish he had in the store. Then I noticed that he had a large female turtle in one of the tanks. She was roughly about 4 years old and looked a bit neglected and was in a 10 gallon tank with only about 5 inches of water. I was gonna tell the clerk to add more water but he probably would of told me to shut up and get lost. I know it's not entirely the store owners fault of the conditions that she was in as she was probably dropped off at his door step by someone that was bored of turtles and the store owner did the best he could with his small aquarium setup. PLEASE! PLEASE! Think twice before you buy ... Read More

I stopped by Pet land after work today and picked up a 100watt heat lamp to replace the heat bulb they broke last night. This ceramic one should have a longer life span and also not burst when cold water hits it as I suspect that's what happened to my other bulb by one of the turtles. While I was there I also picked up some algae wafers and shrimp pellets as I was out of both of them. I give the wafers to my Plecos every other day or a few times a week to cut down on over feeding them. The shrimp pellets are for my crayfish and my small algae eaters. These particular shrimp pellets are good for keeping your tank cleaner as they don't make as much mess as some other brands while they get consumed. After screwing in the ceramic heat lamp I changed the water in the turtle tank.  This water change was larger then usual as I wanted to suck out as much of the old water as possible and any bottom debre using my gravel cleaner. 100w Ceramic Heat Lamp Algae Waffers and Shrimp Pellets ... Read More

OH MY! I was just about to go to sleep when I noticed some funny looking things on the bottom of my turtle tank. I looked closer and I was like what the heck, there are pieces of glass in the tank. I looked around and was confused, how did pieces of glass get into my aquarium. Then I looked up and I saw the turtle heat bulb all broken and not working. I quickly disconnected the power and grabbed my net and started to scoop all the glass out of the tank. I got it all out and tomorrow I will do a water change and make sure there is no more there. I think the the bulb must of been really hot and the turtle splashed some water at it and it exploded. I tell yeah turtles are like kids they get into lots of trouble. :D ... Read More

I changed the water in all my aquariums yesterday and used the Python NO SPILL which made it a breeze. The Python NO SPILL is a 25 foot hose with an adapter at one end that attaches to your sink faucet. The adapter allows you to add and drain water from your aquarium with no spills or any heavy lifting. If you have a 30 gallon tank or bigger then I would definitely recommend getting one of these. But if your aquarium is smaller then 30 gallons I would stick with the hose and bucket system. The reason it's not worth it for smaller aquariums is that it will take you longer to hook it up then to change your water. I would also recommend that if you have any type of external canister filter, do a weekly check of your hoses to make sure they are not pinched. Yesterday while cleaning my water in my turtle tank I spotted that both my inlet and outlet hoses were pinched and the filter was only working at 20% efficiency. This would makes sense why my water in my turtle tank was not the cleanest the last few weeks. ... Read More

My ammonia is down and my turtles have duckweed to eat now. I added Zeolite Ammonia Remover to my XP3 filter and now 6 days later my ammonia level has dropped to a good rating. As you can see from the image to the left, the vile on the right is yellow which is today's reading where as the one on left was from 3 days ago and it is green. Anything that is not yellow means you have large amounts of ammonia in your aquarim which is stressful to your fish. As far as my results are concerned, I am really happy with this product as you can see it has worked really well for me.    I went to my Dads place at lunch today and he gave me a bunch of duckweed. Duckweed is a really small aquatic plant that grows very fast in aquariums. He bought some about a month ago and has since spread in his 10 gallon aquarium really fast. It started to cut the light to the bottom part of his aquarium so he gave me all that he had in that tank. He has spare duckweed in his other tanks so he can grow it really fast and replenish his stock. The reason I wanted duckweed was because is it good plant source for turtles and it's pretty easy ... Read More

I've done some maintenance on my fish tanks and filters the last few weeks so everything seems to be going good. The only filter that still needs cleaning is the auxiliary filter in my turtle tank. The main purpose of this filter is to remove any large particles of dirt and poop from the turtles. The pickup of this filter is right at the bottom of the aquarium where all the large particles reside, where as my regular filter pickup is about half in the aquarium. My large yellow belly turtle Cocco has been growing really fast and I haven't been adding the turtle calcium block fast enough so she split her sell at the bottom a few weeks ago. Soon as I found out I changed the water to make sure it was clean for her to heal and added more of the turtle blocks in the water so she could use the calcium heal that up. She was doing good for a while when i noticed the other day that the large pleco i have in the same tank was trying to suck at the soar spot she had, soon as i saw that i transferred the pleco into ... Read More

I like having my water in my tanks really clean so Ichanged the water in my turtle tank 2 days ago but noticed that there was till some small bits of debris floating around. Now usually this was not anything to big to worry about but since I did get an extra XP4 filter a while back I decided to hook that up to the turtle tank and help filter out the water to crystal clear conditions. I always hear people complaining about turtle tanks because the water always stinks well to tell you the truth I've had turtles for almost 1 and a half years now and my water never stinks. If I do come home and there is an odour of an aquarium nature it's always my fish tanks not the turtle tank. Actually I have never had any kind of smell out of my turtle tank, I mean if you put your nose close to the water you can small a bit of aquarium like scent but nothing that makes your nose cringe. After a few hours of both filters running the water was perfect, so this was a great choice as you can't over filter but you can always under filter. In the 2nd XP4 ... Read More

My slider turtle basking light bulbs both burned out yesterday so I stopped by the pet store on the way home and picked up a new set. I've had my slider turtles for over a year and and half now so I've gone thru a few of these already but this is normal I believe. These bulbs are on about 14-16 hours a day so they definitely do get there usage. The bulb on the left is the UVA and UVB bulb for vitamin D for my turtles and it runs at 13Watts, It's called the ReptiGlo 5.5 and this gives my turtles sufficient amount of UV rays. The bulb on the right is the heat and basking bulb that warms my turtles up and keeps their shell from rotting. This the basking Daylight spot lamp by Sunglo and it runs on 75 Watts and gives of good light and heat. Both bulbs are produced by EXO Terra and should be available at most pet stores. I've heard that you can get longer lasting ceramic heat lamps but personally I like these better because I can see that it's so I know it's working. ... Read More

Found another great turtle website, it's not directly related to slider turtles but has some great either way. Click Here for turtle care site. ... Read More

I found this great site that tells you everything you need to know about feeding your Red Ear Slider turtle. Click Here for the website. ... Read More

Well that day has come for my turtle's to get their new home, the 125 gallon aquarium tank. I bought it brand new from Big Al's Aquarium store with the stand. I had to build the stand but it wasn't hard to do as I am a handyman. The tank is 72" long 23" high and 18" wide but looks really good in the space that I have it in. I bought an XP4 filter for it which should do good till I double up and have 2 XP4's running at the same time. ... Read More

What can I say I like my turtles they are so cool to watch as they rip around in the tank looking on how to figure out how to score the next meal. Cocco and Rocco ... Read More

3rd set of pictures with my turtles Cocco and Rocco. My male turtle Rocco my red ear slider This is my female turtle Cocco the yellow belly slider. More pictures of Cocco basking away on the floating dock ... Read More

Found some great info pages about turtles Happy Turtle Turtle Care Robyn's Turtle Page ... Read More

I got some good shots today of Cocco and Rocco in there aquarium basking under the heat lamp and chilling. Cocco Rocco ... Read More

My 5 Aquariums It all started on Dec 26, 06, it was boxing day and I bought myself a 10 Gallon aquarium kit from Petcetra.I started with some neon tetras and some dwarf frogs. Well sure enought a month later I bought my 2nd aquarium a 20 gallon that I put a crayfish into it and some black mollies and red platies. Well 8 months later I have two 10 gallon breeders, 20 gallon frog tank, 29 gallon crayfish tank and a 45 gallon turtle tank.I have a good assortment of fish and aquatic life and man I love it's always fun to watch each tank every night as things are always going on. Each tank is like it's own ecco system totally different style and pace of life every single second of each day. Now you say why 5 fish tanks, well each one is setup to house different aquatic life, the 45 gallon has turtles, 29 gallon has a crayfish, 20 gallon has dwarf frogs and the two 10 gallons are for breeding fish. 45 Gallon Turtle Tank The 45 gallon 1 yellow belly slider turtle named Cocco, 1 red ear slider named Rocco, 1 full size stripped angel ... Read More

My New Slider Turtles On April 21, 2007 I bought 2 slider turtles one was a Red Eared Slider named Rocco and the other was a Yellow Belly Slider named Cocco. I had them in the tank with some really small feeder fish for about a week, but unfortunetly Rocco the smaller one ate one of those feeder fish and choked on it and died. So now weeks later I only have Cocco the Yellow bellow one. Cocco was getting bored being alone so I added some bigger fish into his tank and he already ate one and took a good chunk out of the tail of another one. Below are some pictures of my turtles. Above is a picture of Rocco on the left and Cocco on the right, chilling on a piece of driftwood. oh and thats there food below them not poop :). Closeup of Cocco relaxing under the light. Cocco stairing outside his tank. For now I decided to keep only one turtle and not to purchase anymore as this is my 3rd aquarium and room will become and issue as this little guy gets bigger. ... Read More