Fencing in a turtle

[Darkness9876]

I plan on owning a pond someday something rather large in th 4000g range. I would love for it to have some native fish/ or carp in it but I also love guppies. And therefore I would love to have one with a lower big pool and a higher up pool thats part of the waterfall/stream section to house guppies.

I would also love to have a couple painted turtles or red eared sliders. I don't want them escaping though and was wondering how do you keep a turtle in.

I don't like cheap tacky looking fixes and making something would not be a problem.

I was thinking that I could ring my pond in a river rock wall that is of course mortared. It would use slate on the inside of the wall to provide a very smooth surface and the entire thing would be around 12-18" tall. Would this keep turtles in?

Also I know it will be a long time before this becomes a reality but I was thinking if I get planning now it will go smoother in the end.

I will try and draw out what I would like and post it on here in the next couple of days as I know you all love to read about others ideas. I am also very open to ideas and help. I really don't want to screw this up.

So if you would tell me what your favorite kinds of plants are and some basics on keeping turtles It would be greatly appreciated.

I'll try and post some more specific questions too when I get some more information.

Thanks in advance.

[rinmouse]

I don't know much about keeping turtles... but I do know that I too am feeling the pond itch!!! Good luck with your planning.

[Sploke]

What I did on my pond was use pavers around the edge. The top edge underneath the liner is cinderblock so there is at least 8" of vertical wall all the way around, and then the pavers overhang the vertical edge by about 2" all the way around. I would be worried about a larger turtle, say a 12-14" red belly or something similar, but it works great for my painteds. I also have a shallow area leading up to an enclosed "garden", where eventually I'm going to have a few box turtles. This is edged with two-high cinderblocks for a 16" vertical wall all the way around. you can see pictures here:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155401

[Notophthalmus]

You've got the right idea. As Sploke said, the turtle's size will determine how high the wall must be. Figure out the maximum shell length of the turtle species you want to keep; make your wall height at least 1.5 - 2 times this measurement. So, for sliders you would need a wall at least 18-24" high; a shorter wall, say 10-14" high, would suffice for painteds.

One place you should be extra careful is at any corners- some turtles are adept at climbing up inside corners. Either use some kind of cap here, like a slab of slate or flagstone laid across the top, or use a curving corner-free wall design.

If you use fencing instead of stone, put some landscape fabric or something in it. Turtles will spend a lot more time trying to overcome barriers they can see through.

Two notes on guppies: first, they won't survive Kansas winters, so be prepared to bring them in, and second, make sure the turtles can't get into that part of the pond- they'll gobble your guppies. A raised pool or container pool (such as a barrel) might be a good plan. Alternatively, you could tie the stone fence into the lowermost waterfall.

You might also consider hardier alternatives to guppies, such as some of your local killifish and minnows.

[Sploke]

In my pond, the guppies were breeding way faster than the turtles were picking them off. Like you said, they didn't survive the winter though, so the end result was the same...no more guppies.

[Darkness9876]

This will be when I live in the south central part of texas. I have plans to move their and I want to heat it anyway.

Thanks for the info.

[mrchillman]

If you have a nice enough pond with enough plant cover and hiding places, and you use rocks and things to make it more on the difficult side for your turtles to escape, chances are they wont. I have had 2 ponds, one nice one, and one not so nice one. The first not so nice one i put a total of 3 turtles in (one at a time) and all 3 of them escaped. The second pond i built is much larger and has a waterfall and stream, and i decided to put in another turtle. So far not only has that one turtle not escaped, but another one of the turtles that escaped before has returned and has been living in it for the past 3 or 4 weeks as well. I too have guppies, and i hope they last the winter here in the South San Francisco Bay Area. (they breed much faster than my turtles can eat them). No fences for me i don't like them :)

[Darkness9876]

Here I drew this up hope it doesn’t confuse you. The measurements are for depth but it solely a reference to slope and wouldn’t be tiered as it appears.

62762

I plan on having 4 res or painted turtles and possibly some koi or carp and maybe some crawdads. I don't really know yet as I think most fish over 4" are very ugly. If it was heated maybe I could have a cool catfish or something like that. Any suggestions here? Links to pics of some nice looking large fish ?

I was also wondering how driftwood could be used in a pond. I would love to have a large piece of tree branch partly submerged. Is this possible?

The fence will be going about 8 feet away from the water but won't follow its shape very closely it will be more of a wavy oval. I think that a river rock wall at 18" capped with slate with an overhang on the back of 3" would suffice to keep the critters in. I use the term fence only to imply a border that is impenetrable to a turtle it wouldn’t actually be a fence as I dislike them.

The area in between the wall and pond would be filled with various marginal plants and covered in mosses, underlayed by a mixture of pea gravel and river rock all the way up to 3" diameters and then run directly up to the pool border.

The area where the waterfall enters will be a sort of hill with the waterfall side built of 3" thick slate pieces with a small pool in the middle for my smaller fish. It will spill over into the stream and help provide aeration.

I don't know much about what kind of pumps you use on an large pond but I would make sure that the intake and outlet were far apart to create a current to stop stagnant spots from forming.

Well please tell me what you think of it. Any suggestions.



Thanks again for any suggestions

[Darkness9876]

Bump.

[Notophthalmus]

This looks very nice to me. A few notes:

Since you have such a large bog garden area, I would leave out the shelves and simply have the pool drop steeply to a depth of at least 18" or so right at the edge. This will help discourage wading birds, raccoons, and other predators which can eat your fish and juvenile turtles. Obviously you will have to provide new baskiong areas for your turtles, but that is addressed below.

Some other fish you might consider keeping include bullheads and channel cats (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.scotcat.com/images/i_punctatus3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.scotcat.com/factsheets/ictalurus_punctatus.htm&h=277&w=500&sz=30&hl=en&start=2&um=1&usg=__OEhXnZgQjCP27p8c9a-ddrtEMX4=&tbnid=FrW9wxqVISWRxM:&tbnh=72&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalbino%2Bchannel%2Bcat%26um%3D1%26hl% 3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DRNWI,RNWI:2005-49,RNWI:en%26sa%3DN) (highly visible yellow and albino versions are available); these are big active catfish who can hold their own with turtles and can easily live through any weather Texas can throw at them. Alternatively you could go with small colorful hardy fish such as rosy reds.

It is very easy to use driftwood in a pond, and your turtles will love it; they really prefer basking on emergent structure rather than at the edges of the pond. If the wood floats, just anchor it with rocks or concrete block.

I think your enclosing wall sounds very attractive and effective.

If you want to keep a lot of marginal/bog plants outside the pool, it's a good idea to use liner underneath that area as well. A thinner liner may be used, as it is hidden from sunlight and punctures are not a great threat- it's just there to slow water loss. Fill in several inches of soil on top of the liner, then add your plants and stones. Not too many bog mosses can take Texas heat, so you may look at creeping vascular plants such as Nummularia for your groundcover instead.

The waterfall sounds nice, but I'd make that pool deeper than 15". The deeper the water, the more resistant it is to temperature changes, and a 15" deep pool can easily reach temps over 100 F if it gets full sun. This will wreak havoc on your guppies. Again, temperate fish species are better adapted to extreme temperatures, but even they would have a hard time in that pool.

[Darkness9876]

Thanks, for the info.

I was planning on something like a creeping sedum although thats out the window as it would just rot. I really like water iris's and things like that as well as elephant ear plants and bamboo.

I really dislike the flat drop off. Maybe I could use larger river rock around the edge below and above water that way it won't be such a crisp edge.

I was planning on a liner under the bog I just forgot to mention that.

As for the little poolon the waterfall. This would have lots of water running through it. Wouldn't that then help heat the pond but also keep the water running through it cooler as its always changing with water from the pond itself? Another Idea would be to make the pool out of one of those preformed ponds you buy at wallmart. Then just cover the edges with the slate and incorporate it into the waterfall. That would be deeper yet and probably eaiser to clean.

My next question is about trees. I love Weeping Willows. I was wondering if I could plant a weeping willow near my pond. I know that they have roots that can run 100+ feet and can wreak havok but I was wondering if there was anyway it was possible?

We have tons of channel cat around here in kansas in fact we have an 15acre pond completley full, a 8acre pond full . We also used to have a 5acre pond that was nothing but bullheads but our neighboors stocked their pond with Largemouth bass and crappie, then it rained really hard and now we have all their fish. But won't channel cats and bullheads eat all of my plants. None of those ponds ever have any vegetation.

What about bluegill? And guppies? I have heard that guppies breed faster than turtles can take care of. And in texas they would only take 18 days to develop.

Botanica, our local botanical garden has the coolest kind of lillys in their koi pond that is well over 10acres. They also have several hundred koi including my favorite a 4+ft specimen that is solid black, come to think of it hes probably just a carp but hes still amazing. Anyway they have a kind of lilly that has pads big enought that you can put a cinder block on them and they won't sink, they also have little spines all over the bottom and sides and don't have the typical split. The pads themselves range from 6" to over 2'. Any ideas what those are and if they are feasable? And water Iris's are these just common iris's that are used to water or is it a different kind? Any info and links on these would be appreciated.

Thanks Notophthalmus

[Notophthalmus]

Those big lilies are a South American species called Victoria lilies. I don't know if they are hardy in S. Texas, but I suspect not. There are a handful of iris species that do well in bog environments, but they are not the same as common garden iris. Louisiana iris, swamp iris, and yellow flags are all wetland iris species.

Cats can uproot plants, but they generally don't harm potted plants. They don't eat vegetation, they just like to root around looking for prey.

Bluegill would do just fine in your pond, as would other slackwater sunfish such as green sunfish, warmouth, dollars, stumpknockers, etc. They aren't very flashy when viewed from the top, though. If your guppies can outreproduce your turtles' appetites, then they should do well in the main pond. But don't combine them with bluegill or catfish- those are much more effective predators than turtles are.

If you want trees, willow or otherwise, near your pond, just use some kind of barrier to prevent the roots from reaching your liner. A buried fence of aluminum flashing should do the trick, I think. Be sure to keep in mind that weeping willows grow quite large. There are other willows, such as curly willow, that stay smaller, as well as other 'weeping' trees.

As far as the little pool goes, I think your preformed pond idea is best, especially if you use a large overlap with the edging stones to help keep it shaded. The water flowing through will help, but enough flow to prevent the pool from heating at all would be enough to wash the guppies out.

I mistakenly used 'Nummularia' above when I meant Lysimachia nummularia, AKA creeping jenny. It is somewhat similar in appearance to sedums and has pretty yellow blooms. Elephant ears love bogs, as do caladiums, cannas, and other broad-leaved 'tropical' looking species. Be careful with bamboo, as it can become a pest if not contained; flashing comes in handy again here, this time to totally encircle the bamboo clump. Alternatively you could use rough horsetail (Equisetum hyemale), which is somewhat similar in appearance but easier to control.

[Darkness9876]

Thanks again for the info. I know that the lilys they have at botanica grow year in an unheated pond. However I suspect that where they grow it is up to 8 ft deep. I will have to see if I can get an ID from them.

I love caladiums, and creeping ground covers. I think big river rock boulders would look great sticking out of that mix. I figured that would be the case with the bamboo. I think I could scavange a galvanized stock tank to bury and then control it though.

As for the weeping willow that was what I suspected. Maybe a japanese maple then. Or a weeping cherry.

Can danios and guppies live in the same pond?

What other kinds of small fish are pretty from the top? I love big fish when they're small but I dislike them when they get large, I find them dispropotianal and ugly. Koi and goldfish are ok, but not my favorite. So I think I would like to stay with smaller vibrant fish. Probably at the biggest 8". Unless I could get my hands on a carp. I like carp for some reason. I will have to think about the catfish.

Are crawdads ok as well?