Eastern Snake-necked Turtle – enclosure
Spatial requirements
Outdoor enclosures are typically larger than indoor enclosures and can be more suitable for multiple turtles. Both outdoor and indoor enclosures must provide the minimum spatial requirements for turtles. These minimum requirements are based on the maximum length of the shell of the largest specimen in the enclosure and written as L.
For an enclosure containing up to two specimens the following formula should be used:
- Minimum floor for aquatic components of enclosures: 12.5L2 (5L x 2.5L) with no dimension being less than 1.5L
- Minimum average water depth: 1.5L
The enclosure must allow all turtles to submerge themselves at the same time.
The enclosure land area must be large enough to allow all animals within the enclosure to simultaneously lie fully stretched, out of the water without any physical obstructions.
It is very important to consider the spatial requirements of turtles when setting up an enclosure. While it is recommended to provide a larger space than the minimum spatial requirements if possible it is also important that the enclosure is not too large for the current size of the animal. This is extremely important for young turtles that have not reached adult size as they need to feel secure in their surroundings.
The general recommended aquarium size for indoor enclosures is 4ft for an adult turtle, and 2ft for baby turtles however the minimum spatial requirements should always be referred to.
Enclosures must also provide enough space out of the water for all animals to lay without any physical obstructions and include a basking area. The basking area or dock must be bigger than the turtle or turtles in the enclosure and be large enough for all turtles within the enclosure to simultaneously bask.
The water area of the enclosure must be big enough for all turtles within the enclosure to be submerged simultaneously.
Floor
Outdoor enclosures
Outdoor enclosures must have a solid base and walls to prevent turtles from escaping, provide a water holding area and prevent entry by predators. A suitable base for an enclosure is concrete with solid walls. The swimming area can be created using concrete, a fibreglass shell or a pond liner. The enclosure must be fenced and secure to prevent unauthorised entry, theft and attacks from predators.
Suitable substrates for the floor of the enclosure include soil, aquarium gravel, sand/soil mix, coco peat and leaf litter. Substrates that can cause abrasion or become lodged in the turtles shell such as wood chips, should be avoided. A suitable floor for the swimming area is concrete or rock. The floor from the swimming area to the land area must be sloping to allow the turtles to easily enter and exit the water. A material that reduces slipping may need to be placed on the sloping surface from the water such as astroturf or thin rubber matting.
Indoor enclosures
Appropriately sized glass aquariums are the most suitable indoor enclosures for turtles. The floor of the swimming area should be glass and the floor of the land area can be aquarium gravel, sand/soil mix, or coco peat/soil mix. Leaf litter can also be added to provide a more natural setting. The floor from the swimming area to the land area must be sloping to allow easy entry and exit to the water. A non slip surface will need to be provided on the ramp, e.g. astro turf, rubber matting.
Furniture
Furniture within enclosures is used to replicate the turtles’ natural environment, provide hiding places, environmental enrichment and to make the animal feel secure. Turtles have reasonably basic furniture needs, requiring a dock or basking area and a hiding place.
The dock or basking area is placed under the heat lamp in the aquarium and must be bigger than the turtle or an area large enough to fit all of the turtles that are kept in the enclosure simultaneously. The dock should be a log/rock or other flat surface raised from the ground and suitable for the turtle to lay on. Specially made docks can also be purchased from stores. The dock/basking area should also be positioned and of an appropriate size to allow turtles to move away from the direct heat source to cool down
The hiding place can be made of a box turned upside down with an entry hole, or hollow log or turtle house purchased from a shop. Hiding places can be easily incorporated into an outdoor enclosure using rocks, logs and other natural features. It is essential however that any objects designed for the turtle to go underneath, are placed on the base of the aquarium or enclosure rather than on top of the substrate to prevent turtles from digging and causing a collapse.
Housing long-necked turtles
Watch Housing long-necked turtles (5:21)
Narrator: Toronga Zoo keeper
Another characteristic about these turtles is that they do surface for air. So, just like all reptiles they need air to breathe. These guys will climb out of the water and sunbake, they breathe air like you and I do or even when they’re swimming they’ll surface, stick their nose out of the water and take a breath. So, it is important that we do give them an area for them to climb out on so they can have a rest and breathe as well.
This is our turtle’s home. You can see over here we have a land area so our turtle can climb up if it wants to and dry out and sunbake. And underneath here we have a lamp so the turtle can bask. We also use UV light on our turtles because it’s really important for their shell to keep their shells nice and strong. If we don’t provide them with UV, their shells will get really soft and go like jelly and they will get Metabolic Bone Disease or Shell Rot or different shell deficiencies and diseases from not providing that.
So, we’ll have a look at him, we can just let him go and he’ll just go off into the water. When you do keep these animals you will find that they spend a lot of time in the water. So, a lot of people think why should I have a landing area for them and that’s the reason why, we do need them to dry out. You can provide different logs and heights so that the turtles can hide and feel comfortable underwater. And they’ll spend a lot of time there, they’ll actually sleep underwater as well so we don’t panic.
And they will get quite tame so that you don’t have to worry about them disappearing and you’re never going to see them again, they will come to you. In the first few weeks of setting up they might hide a lot, but as you’ve got them they will get used to you and they will come over to you.
A common thing though, turtles can drown. So, if you notice a turtle in your tank and he’s sitting in a weird spot and he’s been sitting there for a long time, I don’t mind putting my hand in and giving him a little bit of a poke to wake him up. Sometimes they do get stuck and they drown. So, I prefer to wake him up and have him a little bit cranky with me than not having a turtle at all. So, it is a good thing to check.
When you’re setting up a tank like this, I always look for areas after I’ve decorated that could be little traps. So, if I think the turtle can get stuck, highly likely it will so I try and avoid making really tight little areas for him just to make it safer for him to move around.
If you have a look in our tank we have some pipes running down here which is part of the filtration system.
Keeping a turtle is not like keeping other reptiles, it’s more like keeping a fish. So, we need to keep really good water quality because that’s where they spend most of their time. If we have bad water we’ll get sick turtle.
So, in this instance we’re using a large canister filter which lives underneath our tank, it has pipes that come into the tank, it takes water away, pumps it through different media which is to give us better water quality. We also heat our tank. This tank is set up to around twenty three to twenty four degrees for Eastern Long-necked Turtles. It keeps them busy all year round and it’s sort of their current range of temperature.
In the wild they do experience lots of colder temperatures but when we have them inside a classroom or in a house or in an office we try and keep them at room temperature or just a little bit above just so that they’re busy and they’ll constantly eat for us. If you want to have a look down here we have a watermark. There’s a large land area. We have lights that go across the top which are reptile globes which emit UV light and we change those every eight to twelve months on our turtles just to ensure that they’re getting the right lighting source.
When it comes to cleaning these guys I like to do ten per cent water changes weekly preferably. But if we don’t have time and it can be a bit of a chore at least if we do a third water change every three weeks. And when I do a water change on this, I don’t want to take the turtle out, put him in a bucket every time, I don’t want to strip all my rocks out because it becomes a lot of work and then we’ll stop keeping him. So, what I usually do, I use an aquarium siphon like you would in a normal fish tank and I actually vacuum the gravel to remove any waste.
Now, I’ll just take ten per cent of the water out, replace it with some fresh water, then I’ll put in a water ager, a conditioner to condition the new water that goes in there. And the turtle’s happier, I haven’t had to pull him out. I haven’t had to dismantle the tank, it’s only taken me half an hour, not four hours and dread doing it. So, if I just do small, little bits of maintenance it makes it a lot easier to look after. You’ll also find that your tank will stay a lot clearer and a lot cleaner by doing small water changes more frequently than big dump and cleans every few months and it’s less labour intensive. There’s less chance of us damaging our tank especially when we have big rocks like this, carrying them in and out we do have the risk of breaking things.
So, if we can avoid moving these items there’s less chance of our animals getting caught in them when we put them back. So, just some general care when we’re keeping turtles because they’re not like other reptiles, they do live in the water we are prone to different problems. So, sometimes if our water quality’s not good our turtles can get blemishes on their skin.
So, sometimes they get grey patching on their feet, on their legs, on their necks and the first thing I normally do is check my water quality. So, I check my pH ammonia nitrates just to make sure that the tank is working properly. If that’s all good then I look at other things that it could be a fungus or actual skin problem. But nine out of ten times a lot of things that go wrong with our animal generally comes from the water. So, I try and fix the water before I try and fix the animal or the turtle.
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