Using an old turtle tank as an aquarium?

Ohhh, I'm pretty sure the tank holds water. It was originally a tank used for goldfish, but then the original owners thought goldies were boring and stocked it with two gigantic turtles. When they were tired of the mess they made it was given to me, but since the turtles need a tank at least 3 times as big now they're living in a roomier place and I still have that 55gal that they used.

I think it should be OK... right? I'm going to check for bowing just in case though... it's a very shady looking tank :uhoh:
 
I think I just realized how to measure the glass. Maybe check the corners where the sides meet, and you can see the width of the glass panes there?
 
I measured it and it's about 9mm? That should be good right? I'm going to clean it up and fill it up with water and bleach tomorrow and leave it like that for the rest of the weekend. I guess that will be a leak test and a good cleaning at the same time. If it doesn't hold water, I can always use it for my redfoot tortoise who's going to need a bigger tank soon. We'll see!! :D
 
Yes, sounds ok. Just fill it with water and pour in about a cup of bleach, you don't need a lot. After you rinse it a lot, you can also fill it with water and add a bunch of dechlorinator to be sure you have it out.
 
I suppose you didnt read my first post lol. No worries. 8-10mm is normal for a 55
 
Empty it, hose it out(suggest outside), give it a good scrub with bleach/water. The usual ratio for disinfecting is 1 part bleach to 19 parts water, but, since nothing is alive you want to keep, you could up the percentage of bleach. Make sure you have excellent ventilation! Rinse well, then to make sure fill up the tank and overdose it with a good dechlorinator such as Amquel, Prime, etc. I use baking soda as a gentle scouring powder to remove anything stuck on .
 
Okay, I just finished taking everything out (none of the decorations used for the turtles really go with a planted tank), filled and refilled the tank a few times to clean up the rest of the pop and sandy gravel bits, and just now I filled up the tank with warm water and added the whole bottle of bleach.

The bottle has 2.86 litres... that's about .75 gallons and a whole lotta bleach and more than a cup. I'm getting yelled at in here that I went overboard with the bleach lol. Is this right? I suck at math :( With my calculations I would need about 2 to 2.5 gallons. Just want to make sure I got it right before I buy more bottles 0.0

And yup, I read your post jakezori!! :) That's why I assumed the glass was OK. So far no leaking/bowing!
 
Mk I can't figure out how to edit my post so here's a quick update. I drained the tank, refilled it again, and drained it again and now it's drying. I still have the smell of bleach so I'm not sure if that's normal but I can already see that water bill!

I'm going to let it like this for a few days, and then I'm going to go buy some turface pro substrate, clean it and let it settle in for a few days. :D Maybe i'll start a build log!
 
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