safe tanks and enclosures

dear da_jamelba, The advantage of having a glass aquarium over a rubbermade is the clarity it gives when viewing the activity of your turtles. Rubbermaid though tough and clear, does not provide the same view as that of the glass aquarium and in due time it becomes discolored or scratch by the claws of the turtles. Rubbermaid tanks always viewed from the top because of this reason. Since Rubbermaid is made of plastics that are not UV resistant, in due time it will become brittle due to exposure to either the UV from the Sunlight or from the UV from the UV lamp.Using Rubbermaid shall be limited to indoor use without the basking lamp. If you are using glass aquarium, place about 2" of crushed corals with an average size of 1/8" instead of using the crushed gravels to catch all the sinking dirt and also to provide as cushion in the event the basking flat rock fall and hit the aquarium glass floor. The disadvantage of using crushed corals is in the cleanup of the aquarium. If you don't want to have extra time in the cleaning of the corals, it is better to use other flat material for the basking spot instead of a flat rock, use other flat materials such as wood, or plastic and either incline the plane by using wood or other spacers or just hang the material with hanging supports such as copper wires to give additional free space at the bottom and also provide stability. Copper wires does not corrode easily unlike GI wires and besides a little copper is needed by the turtles. I am currently using an old plastic black magazine organizer as my turtle basking spot. The magazine organizer is placed in an inclined position and hanged from the edge of the aquarium to served as the turtles basking spot. A portion of the magazine organizer is submerge in water while the rest is above the water line. The magazine organizer give three purposes, able drain excess water from the turtle thus speeding up drying and preventing soft shell disease, ease of access for the turtles to climb to for basking and as resting place for sleeping turtles at the space provided by the magazine organizer. I also encountered this problem when my turtles reaches 5" CPL and strong enough to mixed up the aquarium setup and sometimes causing accidental glass breakage. Hope this will help you out. Ferritic

Get a 50 gal rubbermaid instead of 25-35. Or you can buy "Rubbermaid Stock Tank" much harder to break and won't change shape with lots of water.