Darla, I have no idea where he came from. We have had a lot of rain so maybe he washed in or maybe he was someones pet. I really don't know. He is a lot of fun to watch. Moonie, no dead fish yet. I am keeping my fingers crossed. As I said earlier, he really doesn't seem that interested in the fish. Kalypsogirl, your above ground pond is very pretty. I don't know if this turtle will stay or not. He may decide to move on. Computerklutz, I can just see you chasing that turtle around your pool. The one in my pond ducks out of sight as soon as I get too close! flgargoyle, I am sorry about your waterlilies. My next door neighbor tried to get some lilies started in her pond, and her turtle continually ate them. growingup, I am hoping my turtle will make friends with the little fishies, too. I saw him sunning on a rock by my pool today. I have several flat rocks around the perimeter of my pond. Thank you all for your turtle experiences that you shared with me. I will just wait and see. Vicki

Gary: I'm pushing 70, but in my mind, I'm still young. When people start thinking old, they start to die and I'm not ready yet. The glass fish tank I had as a child had a painted iron frame with a slate bottom, but all glass ones, usually mounted in wrought iron frames have been around for at a long time. The fanciest I ever saw was in an antique shop in Brighton, England. The proprieter claimed it was early Victorian, which would have put it at somewhere around 1860- ish. It was about 5 ft. high, with a hand blown bowl that fit into upturned arms, with all sorts of elaborate bits of metal and glass embelishments on it; cherubs, fanciful fish, vines, flowers, glass balls, etc. Frankly, I thought it was hideous. But the Victorians did have larger, metal framed glass aquariums and kept the fish alive with continual water changes, which is easy if you have an estate, a conservatory, and an army of servants. Following the Great London Exibition and the Crystal Palace, glass conservatories became all the rage among the monied, landed Brits. My own love affair with small tropicals started in the Balanced Aquarium Room of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago in the 1940's, when keeping any FW aquarium fish still depended far more on a balance between plants and fish than mechanical filtration and one of the reasons I still strive to affect it. The better balanced the tank, the less dependence on any filter. budcarlson: A survey? Okay, but I honestly don't know that it will help you, because every fish keeper has different likes, dislikes and tanks, as well as their own notions, but for what it's worth.... a) Filter type (duh) Box, sponge, canister, UV. b) Water type (fresh, etc) Fresh c) Gravel/sand/etc It's called substrate, but in my situation, it depends. The baby, grow-out and Q's are all bare, but fairly loaded with live plants in clay pots. I use a lot of low to lower light level types in my black water show tanks, as well as java moss and naja (guppy grass) in the livebearer tanks, as cover for babies and harried fems. I've been experimenting with different substrates in my show tanks. One that's worked well is sand over Flourite, but Gary wrote of using garden soil and I'm finally going to try it in a big stock tank this summer, but it will be outdoors, so if it turns out a muddy mess, I can just stir it up to slurry and use a sewage pump to send it all through a hose to the tomatoes. d) Plants/amount As all of my tanks are Amazon or Asian, all are farily heavily planted, mostly with Cryps and Anubia, but I keep the light fairly high in baby and grow-out tanks and have many wide shallow clay pots of Vals. e) Daily/weekly/monthly/yearly maintenance (filter only) I switch box filters in baby tanks daily, so I can load on the food without fouling the tank. But I don't use loose floss in them. I cut bonded pond filter media to fit the boxes and rinse them clean, getting at least 10 -12 uses from each and it makes changing easier, as does keeping the charcoal and zeno in net bags instead of loose in the filters. But the box filter frames are bleached cleaned after each use, and why I have at least 4 dozen of them. I do them in bulk, weekly. Foam filters may go several days in baby tanks, but are all doubles or quads, which allows me to squeeze half in tank water and the other in fresh, to make sure at least one is always loaded but one very clean, as to draw the most effectively. The plastic housing of the power filters are flushed out at least bi-monthly regardless and washed completely clean as new whenever they accumulate enough gunk to make me think they aren't flowing as well. The sponge pre-filters on power filter intakes are only to trap fines, not for bio-filtration, so are squeezed out in clean water in a bowl with repeated fresh water until it's clear at least bi-monthly. f) Necessary yearly supplies Impossible to make a comparison. I load in frozen foods from F & S once a year during winter, to take advantage of the flat rate shipping. Overwrap a package in foil and seal it into a freezer weight bag and as long as the freezer holds at 0 deg., it will be as good a year later as the day it arrived rock hard via FedEx Overnight. I buy dry food in single ingredient bulk bags from Ken Menard (kenfish.com) and make my own custom mix, with something to appeal to every species I keep. I mix it up in a 20 gal. tub, then pack it into small zip bags, inside larger freezer bags and store it also in the freezer. g) Major long term maintenance issue Keep to a regular maintenence schedule and there aren't any, unless you have a glass tank that suddenly starts leaking and if it does, as long as the glass is intact, resealing one like new is easy- IF you know how, and I do. h) Advantages To what? i) Disadvantages For me, being retired, instead of freezing my ass off in Illinois, messing with fish, I could be in Aruba, eating them fresh caught. j) Realistic monetary investment per year Also impossible to make a comparison. For some, the cost of setting up a 5,000 gal. reef tank is chump change. For others, a 5 gal. Eclipse with a single Betta is their limit. k) Have you ever had a catastrophic filtration system failure, and if you remember or know, why did it happen (and how could it have been prevented). If you had a near-failure, how did you save it? Certainly. That's when I learned the Awful Truth about UG's. It happened because I did everything I was told to do, using powerheads on both uplift's and suctioning the water at changes through them, but in the end, all it took was my getting too sick for a week to do a good change and the gasses trapped under the filter plates exploded and I lost an entire breeding colony of Sterbi. If I ever had a near failure I was unaware of it, because I did something to avert it- probably a water or filter change. Unless the filter quits and you aren't paying enough attention to your tank to even notice it, if you keep the tank clean with regular water changes, a filter break-down alone- CAN'T kill your fish.

Yes - Eheim is a brand name. I have three! (one for each of the large tanks in the house) I picked one up on sale at Big Al's Fish (website listed below). Another I got on sale at a local fish store. The first - for the cichlid tank, I got a full price. It was when this newer model had just been put out. I did start with the economy line. The filter is great!! But like I said - priming it is a pain. They do have a device, but it can really be a hassle. I guess I decided I'd rather pay more for ease than go crazy everytime I needed to clean or change water (you know how if you're doing water changes you kinda forget and then let the water level go below the intake tube? And then you gotta get the pump going again!!) So I replaced my economy line models with the Pro II series with the priming button. The Aquaclear filters are also VERY easy to start. Easy to clean, easy to maintain. And again, like I said - extremely affordable. Especially if you can find it on sale (Drs. Foster Smith have sales on them periodically!) I remember the last time you were doing your research before buying. So it's good that you're in the planning stage and it gives you time to do your research. I had picked up the marineland w/ biowheel for an indoor pond set up that I would put up every winter when I'd bring in the pond fish. I've since long ago stopped bringing in the pond fish once I really enlarged and deepened the outdoor pond, but the marineland filter worked really well. But that's where I learned what a pain it was to clean. I was constantly slopping water around when I'd remove it to clean it out. I liked the biowheel feature. That winter indoor pond set up had two filters - the marineland and an internal pond filter. You know how dirty koi and goldies can make the water! And it was only a 60 gallon set up. It sounds like you're saving money on the stand at least - so maybe you can splurge a bit on the filter? Whatever you decide, definitely hunt around and see what the going prices are. Like I said, I picked up two on sale. Another online site that I've used (aside from Big Al's and Foster/Smith) is That Fish Place. Sometimes they have good sales, too. Oh - and also Carealot Pets have good prices if they carry what you want! (the variety of stuff they carry is limited, but the prices on what they do have are really very good!) www.carealotpets.com www.thatpetplace.com www.drsfostersmith.com If you are going to use live plants and decide on Eheim, I do suggest in getting the Pre-filter as well. It really helps in keeping plant debris from going into the cannister and then needing to clean it more often. Here is a link that might be useful: Big Al's Fish

Yes, that filter is good too. Turtle water needs to be 78-82. Room temp is too low. Full spectrum involves two lights: UVA/UVB strip light for metabolizing calcium, strengthen bones, harden shell. Without this, your turtle will die. Also, a basking light. Usually a reflecting dome with a UV full spectrum incandescent bulb. Get the Over 60 Watt dome and go with a 75-100 W bulb, depending on the promixity to the basking area in the tank. Will this light, also your turtle will lose appetite, stop eating, and die. As for heat, go with an submersible heater, preset to 82. Turtles are the most expensive to maintain. Many think that it's just a matter of a plastic round tub, some food and a little water. Sure, if you want a pet with a one month death sentence.