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.



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 (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.