Musk turtles

[An76]

Looking for advice on tank for two musk turtles

 

[Demeter32]

Musk turtle don't get too big, the largest I've seen was about 6ish inches long. Turtles are messy though and I wouldn't keep 2 in anything smaller than a 40gal tank (bigger is better). They will need a heat lamp on one end of the tank and place to climb up on and bask in the light. Keep in mind that you will still need to do regular maintenance on the tank, meaning weekly water changes or more depending on how messy they are.

 

[stanleo]

Whenever I want to keep an animal I have never kept the first thing I buy is a current book on that species and read it cover to cover. A few years ago I decided I want to keep chameleons, real ones not anoles. I read the whole book and decided I no longer wanted to keep them.

 

[An76]

I had already bought the turtles in a 30 litre aquarium tropical set up, which they seem happy in but am looking to get the biggest tank I can afford and looking to have it planted so looking into what substrate and plants are suitable, I may even add a few fast swimming fish danios or cherry barbs or similar

 

[Demeter32]

How big are the turtles now? If they are babies then you can certainly keep them in a smaller tank till they grow out a bit. It would be rather hard to find and feed a 2in turtle in a 40gal tank.

As for planting the tank, this might not work too well. I'd only use floating plants like hornwort, duckweed, water sprite, elodea etc. They guys will grow larger and may end up eating and/or uprooting plants.

Found some good link with good info.
http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/Hemigrammus-ocellifer/
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/musk.html

 

[An76]

They are about the size of golf balls at moment I was just going to get Amazon swords and pond weed as so far these are the only plants I've googled to be safe so far and I don't mind replacing occasionally and re planting or if not I have other set ups the plants can go in

 

[RevTerry]

Check turtleforum. It'll prolly be more useful than here.

I have turtles my self.

 

[An76]

Just found the tank I will buy as soon as I have unit big enough to support it, next thing to look for is a uvb light
Any recommendations???