amethyst

We used a bit of aluminium frame like you'd make a fly screen out of, split the tank in half and made 2 frames to fit so we can take one half off and the other half is still covered.

You need to make sure the top on the tank fits really really well. They can squeeze out of the tiniest wee hole!

I can add to this We lost 2 tanks in the quake, unfortunately for me one was our small hospital tank which I'd recently drained and put on the floor beneath the main hospital tank, the big one came down and landed on top of the small one :roll: . The one that fell, it was on a very flimsy metal stand, it was half full which probably didn't help much, it fell sideways into the pellet fire, put a big gack in the side of it then hit the tile floor. It nearly spread itself right to the window on the other side, and if the double doors had been open would have gone into the entranceway as well. Took 3 hours to clean up :evil: . Our 200 litre tank lost about 5cm of water out of the top, it was drained immediately so we could clean the carpet underneath. It's sitting on a very solid recycled rimu stand but the top came off, hit the wall behind then went forwards and hit the floor . (and I still can't work out how the heck it managed to do that but we've got a dent in the wall we didn't have before so it must have done somehow??) Thank goodness we had a spare tank in the hall cupboard...I'm sure my tanks have been breeding I can't remember having that many :oops: ) The 900 litre turtle tank lost about 20cm worth of water, it's built into the wall and it didn't move even the tiniest bit :lol: . The wall's behind and infront were soaking wet though. The funny looking thing in the last picture was the shelf from the turtle tank, it was fixed in place with silicone so was pretty rigid, and it cracked down one end. We cut it out a couple days later when we realised it was damaged. (you've got no idea how scared I was to open the doors, I was expecting it to be all over the floor lol: ) The 300 litre frog tank (with 30kg worth of stones on the land side) moved a couple centimetres off it's metal stand but didn't fall over. (luckily cause without either of the other tanks we would have had no-where to put them :lol: .) The 40 litre cold water fish tank was sitting against the wall on the kitchen bench, it lost about 5cm worth of water and moved a wee bit on the bench but didn't fall. I think if the shaking had gone on 30 more seconds it would have fallen for sure because it had wiggled it's way nearly to the edge of the bench. Nothing would have saved the one that fell, it was doomed from the start :lol: . The stand is so narrow it used to wobble if one of the kids jumped on the floor in front of it. One thought I had with the solid rimu one, was to secure the top to the base to stop it coming off again, but would that make it more likely to topple over (top heavy)? I'd thought to secure it by stringing wire from the top to the bottom in a X shape and twisting them together. It's got a backing so it wouldn't be seen. Thoughts on that?? I'm still a bit unsure... Sorry, that turned into a bit of a novel :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

You can get different plastic fry tanks that have a v shaped divider so the fry can get away from their mum. I think they are normally around $10.

EWWWW! It looks bad enough in the rivers I can't fathom it in a tank .

Awesome, thanks!

okey dokey, off to find a reeeealy big pot :lol: . How long should I boil them for? The wood I got today looks the same as my store purchased one if that helps?

She'd just look at me like "you want me to do wha??" :lol:

I was told if you freeze it for 24 hours it will kill any bugs that crawled into it??

I picked up some nice looking stuff at sunmer today. Washed and in my freezer as we speak .

Oh I know I wouldn't cope!! I'd miss her terribly!! If her tank were easier for me to get her out I'd let her run round the grass a couple times a week but I can't climb in and get her out and climb out by myself.

I'll see if I can organise a sitter for the munchkins .

Maybe it smelled nice :lol: .

I'd much rather have her inside where we can interact with her. She's always been kept inside and I'm not sure how she would cope being outside by herself all of a sudden? She's a very social girl .

I've just messaged her , thanks!

Thanks Blueyes! I'm redoing the big tropical fish tank first, then the frogs, then the poor turtle! I've been to 5 pet shops in the last 3 days and no-one's terribly helpful about what to do for the turtle. One today even said this "insert product here" will easily do a red eared slider turtle and got quite put out when I said it wouldn't do my 20 year old dinner plate sized turtle at all...don't think petshops expect them to live much past a couple years :evil: :roll: . At least the fish and frogs are easy, you can just go out and buy stuff that's the right size and will fit nicely in the tank. The turtle tank is built into the wall and only has access from one side (although I can and have climbed into it when needed :oops: ), so I can't put big rocks in it because I have to climb into the tank anyway. So totally uninspired right now, will go have a look at some of those pictures 8) .

Ok, she's dinner plate size so pretty much all the store bought islands are too small. Tank dimensions: 144.5cm long, 99cm deep, 86cm high (approx 110cm across the back, it's angled on one side so we can get to it), and it had 67cm of water in it. Most people seem to say to stack up stones and driftwood to make a basking area but i'm unwilling to do that as to get it high enough it would take away most of her swimming space. I also reeeealy don't like the idea of stacking rocks in her tank (even before the quake). We did have a glass shelf (with sides and was full of stones), with a ramp into the water which we never really liked but was all we could think of, but that cracked and we had to cut it out. We even purchased an artificial rock from the water garden in the hopes that would look "natural" and be the right size, but it wouldn't sink no matter what we did so we flagged that idea. Cost isn't a big consideration, as long as whatever we do will last and look really good. Any ideas? Please?? :lol:

Hey guys! How long do these meetings normally go for? Is it ok to bring kids (7, 6 and 4)? Ta

Totally tanked?? Where is it? (Is it relatively good kid friendly?)

Is there anywhere with pictures of people's turtle tank setups? The quake damaged our turtles basking area and without replicating it again (which we really don't want to do incase it happens again) we are at a real loss as to how to rebuild. I'm just off out to take the kittens to the vet (oh and the kids to school LOL!) and I'll be back with tank dimensions and how much water was in there.

ooooo, there's a reptile and amphib section *squee* Off to go find it *big grin*

Hey everyone! I'm a newbie here so be nice :lol: . I suppose this is where I list the tanks I have at home... We have 5 frogs, a 20 year old turtle (anyone know a good forum to talk about turtle tank setups?), 40 litre cold water fish tank with 3 wee fella's, and a tropical tank with 4 bristle nose suckies, and another fish I can't remember :oops: . Just in the process of re-setting up the tropical tank, after the quake we drained it and put it on the floor and put the fish into one of our smaller hospital tanks. I'm looking for inspiration of what I want it to look like with a bit of driftwood and a couple wee rock caves so far, dunno what plants to put in it yet but will fill it and put the filter on today. Kinda bites it's going right back to the start but that's life huh . See ya round the place ...