crushed shell in ponds
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thanks everyone for the conversation on using crushed shells for terrapin tanks… I realized I was thinking of crushed coral/shell as only for salt water fish… Lisa – you mentioned using it in your pond – do your turtles hibernate in the pond? I built mine with a deep section in the center lined with several inches of clay for them to burrow into in the winter… it worked beautifully for my huge slider… then I adopted 3 terrapin rescues over the winter… I don’t know if it’s one or all of them, but they’re making a MESS… they dig around in the clay and it makes the water murky… I was thinking of covering the clay with something like gravel but was worried about them still being able to dig through to the clay when it got cold… do you have any suggestions on what I could use to cover the clay that would still allow them to dig down in the winter? sand? crushed shell? gravel? mixture?
I am very rural and I just don’t trust our winters or my pond heater yet for outdoor hibernation. I hybernate them indoors in stock tanks. I think any substance is good for burrowing and hibernating it is just how much of a mess or water clarity you want. I have to see the bottom of my pond and have clear water, it’s one of my have to’s. DBT’s are messy and love to treasure hunt at the bottom of ponds so if you have clay or any type of soil I can only imagine how murky your water is.Ultimately, whatever is around the edges of your pond if you allow them access to it will end up in your pond. I have areas close to the edges of the pond of sand for eggs, of pea gravel to try to keep the plants from closing in as I have a tendancy to overplant. Then I also have dirt mine is clay and those areas are on the exteriors of my pond area around the walls. I have added some soil as the clay is so hard to give them other choices for digging,laying and getting muddy. So my pond gets some soil in it but usually sand. I can handle the sand, coral and some pea gravel at the bottom. The turts have to pass through the gravel and sand areas before getting to the pond from the soil area. It helps to keep the pond clean. Soil does seem to be easily stirred up to suck through my pond cleaner, some sand comes up too but thats cheap enough to replace. I only really use a net most of the time if I see alot of soil accumulation to scoop it out, dump the net on the ground and yes pick out any coral and thow it back in. But my little pond cleaner really only picks up the loose stuff because I do like to have the coral or small river rock on bottom for them to play in. It’s not alot but if I was to hibernate in the pond I would probably allow a buildup of several inches at least in the deeper area. Although mine do hibernate in stock containers without anything at the bottom. Outdoors I know if I ever do it I will mainly monitor the water temp and truthfully never considered the substance in the bottom of the pond. Most of my friends hibernate indoors a few outdoors and maybe they will chime in here.But during the summer I would get the soil out that just me. The turts probably love it,hehe.Lisa
In the wild, terps will hibernate in either sand or mud. Take your pick! ;D -Stephen C — In diamondbackterrapins@yahoogroups.com, “Amy Steffee”
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