What’s the best set-up for keeping my turtles in the best of health? They’re in a rubbermaid bin for the winter. Do I need gravel? What’s the best type of filter for <$100? How often do I clean it? How do I clean it?
Also, is there any easy way to check their age?
Gravel is sort of a matter of preference - when I had my turtle he liked to pick the gravel up and play with it, toss it around, put it in little piles and then bash through them, etc. so if you think your turtles would like that, go for it.
I would recommend a Fluval external canister filter you can check them out here:
http://www.aquariumsuperstore.co.uk/mall/fluvalexternal.asp
You don’t need to clean it too often (I used to do mine about every 3 months) - because the turtles will be less upset about water quality than fish, you can just haul all the media out, rinse them in a tub (wash tub, bath tub, whatever), run a large pipecleaner type object through the tubes (you can get these where you get the filter) and you’ll be good to go.
Regarding the age of your beasties - it kind of depends what sort of turtle they are, but generally you look at their size, and check out their back plates.
Not sure which type of turtles you have, but since you mention water, I’ll assume they’re some type of semi-aquatic turtle. The information in my post will apply to commonly kept semi-aquatic turtles like sliders, maps, etc.
As far as gravel, I’ve found opinions vary, because there are concerns about impaction if a turtle accidently ingests the gravel. Some people don’t use gravel at all. As a compromise, I like the large pebble gravel as opposed to the smaller silica. It’s usually pretty easy to tell these apart, even when buying in bulk, because the pebble gravel is always smooth and usually comes in natural colors. The silica gravel has sharp edges and small pits, and often comes in bright colors. Gravel makes it easy to shore up one side of an enclosure to provide a basking spot, but it’s still possible to do this by purchasing platforms which usually adhere to the side of an enclosure with suction cups and skip gravel altogether.
For an inexpensive but still effective filter, I like the Duetto filters or something similar. They’re submersible, and come with a prefilter to help prevent clogging. Some stores sell knock-offs that seem to work about as well. The reason I like the submersible type, is that they help provide some good movement to the water and help prevent stagnancy so that you don’t have to worry about a build up of debris in corners of the water part of the enclosure.
As far as cleaning the tank, I think it depends upon the size of the enclosure and how many turtles you have in it. If I have the means, I prefer to feed the turtles outside of their enclosure (a utility sink or another rubbermaid could work), because the pellet food tends to break down quickly and really adds to the bioload of a tank. Feeder fish can also add to the bioload, from waste, uneaten food; and when eaten, leftover pieces. If the tank is starting to smell, it’s certainly time to do a water change.
There’s quite a few problems turtles can develop if left in unclean water. This page has some good information about possible problems, particularly under the bacterial infections section. There’s also a section on water hygiene and sanitation.
Cleaning the tank, usually is easiest for me using an aquarium siphon, like I would do with a regular fish tank. It’s nice if you have a Python and they’re available at most pet stores. They come in different sizes and it’s possible to make one of your own without too much difficulty. One last link to some General Care of Aquatic Turtles that you may find worth the read. As for age, unless you buy a turtle before it is fully grown, I don’t know of an easy way to determine a turtle’s age, sorry.
If you have something semi-aquatic like a red-eared slider, make sure that there is a place in the tank for it to get out of the water and completely dry off. Also it’s good if they have a lot of water to swim around in. I have 3 red-eared sliders. I bought them in the winter of 2001 from a store in Chinatown and they are now really big and doing really well. The two females are about a foot long and weigh several pounds, and the male is around 7-8 inches long. Ours are very active. They swim all over the place and watch you when you walk past. The set-up we have is a large tank (55 gallon I think) filled 2/3 of the way with water with several floating rocks for them to sun themselves on. There are 2 heat lamps, florescent lighting and a filter (I forget the brand.)
I also had red-eared sliders, and they were fun to feed, but boy were they messy eaters. Make sure you either feed them elsewhere, or clean the tank frequently. I used to clean mine by dumping the dirty water into the toilet and then cleaning and scrubbing with fresh water.