Kameya Pool

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kameya

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Like most of the turtle lovers, I started with a pair of RESs back when I was a college student, so they have been with me for almost 12 years. At the time, I just kept them in the water bucket, then moved them to bigger containerS as they got bigger...but I've never got them a proper aquarium/habitat setup for them to grow properly. For a while, I kept them in a 50 gallon igloo tank, but it was hard for me to see them when they went into the water. So I've finally decided to build a nice outdoor pond for them to live like a real turtle...

This was the igloo habitat where I kept my RESs...

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Before building the actual pond, I sketched out a design that shows the look of the new pond...

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The location of the new pond...

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The two main components of the new pond...a waterfall box and the preformed pond container...

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The Waterfall Box

Instead going with the expensive waterfall box for the real pond, I picked up this inexpensive storage container from Costco to be my waterfall box...

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Testing the waterfall effect....

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Adding an interior shelf to support the air pump units...

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Air pump filters were placed inside the waterfall box for additional bio media filtering....

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The Pond

I knew going with vinyl pond liner would save me a lot of money, but by spending a little extra on the preform pond would actually save me time on building and future maintenance down the road... so I went the small Waterland Water Enclosure as it would fit in perfectly with the chosen location...

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Some eggcrate ceilings were added to the pond to create landing platform and base area for the pond....

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Setting the waterfall box on one side of pond...

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The pump was placed and hidden behind the waterfall box...

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This canister filter I used here is a Cascade 1000 unit...

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The Interior Decorating

Some bamboo covers were added to the landing platforms

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An underwater light was placed under the waterfall box to uplight the waterfall at night...

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A land area was also created on the other side of pond for the turtles to dig...

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The Finished Work

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The RESs

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This project took me about 3 weeks from start to finish...but now I would have easier time to view my water turtles and care for them... ^_^
 

Yvonne G

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Hi James:

Wow! When you take on a project you really get into it! That looks wonderful.

From a bucket to the Ritz! Have you seen them basking?
 

kameya

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emysemys said:
From a bucket to the Ritz! Have you seen them basking?

Now you can see them basking all day long as the weather gets warmer here in SoCal...I usually leave for works early in the mornining, and the turtles are already fighting for basking space on the landing that's closest to the waterfall...now you can truly see how the turtles play in their new environment...they would bask for 10 minutes, then dip into the water and swim for a while beofore head back for another round the baking... ^_^
 

LindaF

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Nice set up. I bet you turtles love it. They will think they are wild now!
 

Len B

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Fantastic setup James,so nice I had to scroll through the pics a second time, that's when I noticed the cover,good idea. Nice looking turtles ,are they both female? Len
 

kameya

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??Len?? said:
Nice looking turtles ,are they both female? Len

One of them I believed is a femalie because of the shorter claws on the front limb, the other one I am not sure since both of its front claws had been bitten off by the other one in the first year... but if you flip them over, the size of the tails are about the same, so I assume both of them are females...
 

muddoc

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That is awesome (the easiest way I could relay my thoughts). I see so many things in that build that required some thought, and it seems that you thought of everything. I truly love it. I only have one request: Can we get a nighttime photo with the waterfall light on? Please?

Very nicely done,
 

Fernando

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Awesome Job!

Can we get a picture of it at night? I'd love to see how the waterfall looks with that light showing through water.
 

tortoises101

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FernandoM said:
Awesome Job!

Can we get a picture of it at night? I'd love to see how the waterfall looks with that light showing through water.

I would like to see it too. Great pond you got there!
 

dmmj

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That is one nice looking pond, good idea for the cover to protect them, but be warned if it has not already happened . those plants will be gone soon,I know from personal experience.
 

dmarcus

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Wow you did an excellent job on that, looks great and I am sure your turtles are happy..
 

kameya

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dmmj said:
...but be warned if it has not already happened . those plants will be gone soon,I know from personal experience.

Yes it's true that these water lettuce does become RES's dessert through out the day...but I do keep another big planter with tankful of water lettuce that I can replenish when they are all gone...Good thing is that now summer is here, the water lettuce grows pretty quicky under the sunny weather... ^_^
 

kameya

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Here are more photos I took now the Pool has been in used for a month or so...as you can notice, it has become a green pond...which I don't mind, as the fishes and the turtles can eat the algae as a little treat from mother nature, and I can still the view of my turtles in this green water...
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The only thing that didn't work out as I had planned is the waterfall, I had mis-caculated the pump pressure and the distance where I set the waterfall box to the pond, the water just kept leaking from the waterfall box before it reached the pond...so there goes my waterfall idea, and I just inserted a pipe into the waterfall box for the water to circulate...
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I've also tried to take a few shot in the night with my small Canon camera to show all the lightings I have placed around the pond...
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I took this one without using any flashlight from the camera, and then I used photo-editing software to slightly lighten up the content...
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CtTortoiseMom

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That is a ton of work! I would not know where to begin! Great job!
 

kameya

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CtTortoiseMom said:
That is a ton of work! I would not know where to begin! Great job!

Just needs a lot of planning and researching before the building process...but once you get it going, tons of ideas will come up while you are building it...and even though you thought you are done with the job, you will still come up with new ideas on how to improve it...this is the on-going disease embedded inside of all turtle lovers' minds... ^_^
 

dmarcus

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every new photo seems to get a little better...Guess it's an always growing project..
 
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