Welcome to Turtsville

Background info on "The Tank"

My wife had told me that she wanted a turtle for the longest time. I decided in February of 1999 to get her a turtle for Valentine's Day. I bought Myrtle at one of the local pet stores. Myrtle is a Western Painted Turtle. Our 1st turtle tank that we had was only 10 gallons. That was barely enough room for Myrtle, so when we decided to get Herbie we got a much bigger tank. We got Herbie in May of 1999. Herbie is an African Sideneck Turtle. The tank that we bought was 29 gallons. This tank works out a lot better and gives the turtles ample swimming room. The first filter that we had came with the tank. This filter was a Tetra Whisper Power Filter. The filter was mostly for fish and didn't work very well using it with turtles. The problem was that it caused an extremely loud water fall effect from the water return area. Normally the tank would be filled up to the top of the tank as with fish so there would not be a waterfall sound. If you look at the picture of the tank I had to have some room at the top so that the turtle's basking rock was not submerged. We were able to learn some helpful tips that we hopefully can pass onto you if you are planning to or already own turtles. If you have any suggestions or comments please let us know.