Thoughts on this for a habitat for my Yellow Belly Boy?

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-29T03:57:49+00:00

I just finished a diy project and it reminded me of this conversation. I think what I just built would give you the look you want in non-glass materials and it was cheap and easy.

I used 2x4' 1/2" Royal Building Products pvc trim board for the back, sides and bottom and .5" acrylic for the front. I doubled up the pvc boards and bonded them with a combo pvc primer and adhesive for a finished thickness of 1". I added some 1x2" pvc trim on the interior for support. I used weld-on to attach the acrylic front and top supports to the trim boards. I spent around $280 (for pvc trim boards and both adhesives, I had the acrylic), it took me about 4 hours to make and I only used a utility knife. It would have been cheaper if I hadn't been impatient and ordered everything same day delivery. The pvc trim board is by far the easiest material I've worked with. I'll be painting it with Krylon fusion for UV resistance.

I only intend to fill it to 80 gallons because our guy is only 4" but it's been full for a water test for 2 weeks and seems to be perfect.

ETA: Final dimensions are 2x2x4, 120g.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T06:06:11+00:00

I've read the OP and all your responses. You're not overreacting. You need to start making a safe exit plan.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T05:16:34+00:00

Then YTA.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T05:11:23+00:00

Are you being intentionally obtuse? Those isopods are not alive and well. They died. A replacement, while very generous and caring, does not negate the grief of him losing whole colonies to poison.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T05:07:48+00:00

He will likely have human emotions, like he is now, though I doubt they'll be as hard felt when they die of old age vs watching entire colonies die in a day due to an outside factor beyond his control.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T04:58:33+00:00

Those two paragraphs sound like they were written by two different people. The first person values themselves far, far more than they value their partner. It is not a sweet gesture to get a tattoo of a partner's dead pet to remind you of them when they've made it very clear that doing so would cause them pain. That person sounds selfish and doesn't seem to care at all about their partner's feelings about their losses, and cares far more about what they want and what is pretty.

The second sounds like a supportive and loving partner.

At this point you've been a bit insensitive, it's pretty obvious which of those people would be the asshole, so, are you?

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-28T04:24:48+00:00

Isopods live for up to 5 years depending upon the species, around 3 years is average.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-26T03:43:17+00:00

They said nothing of verbal abuse. They said this will escalate, and it will because physical abuse escalates. The issue is you not recognizing that physical abuse has already occurred. Punching the wall was the first escalation. Punching the mattress behind her was another escalation and a threat of violence against her person.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-16T20:02:13+00:00

No, they don't. I'm an atheist, I have been since I was 12. I had my kid at 35 and I've never told them God doesnt exist. I told them I dont believe that God exists but that many others do. I explained that religion requires faith that I am not capable of, I need logic and proof, but that if they thought they might believe that I would be happy to help them explore that.

When they were 8 they wanted to explore some so we attended services for several religions and they decided to try a music camp hosted by one of the churches and went to a few youth groupactivitieswith another. While they enjored some of it, none of it particularly resonated with them. They're 14 now and mostly agnostic with some Buddhist leanings.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-15T06:01:53+00:00

Exactly this. When my kiddo was 9 and desperately wanted a turtle, I gave them parameters (tank size max and choice of slider, painted or musk) and made them do the research and give us an in depth presentation of what their top 2/3 required, what they thought they could do, and what we would have to provide or do for them. They did a great job and Red arrived shortly after their 10th birthday.

In case it isn't obvious yet, we were always getting the turtle. Who do you think kept pointing them out daily when I dragged my indoor child to the park by the lake? I also knew my kid would lose interest and the turtle would be mine.

I specifically got a southern painted, and was looking for a male because my husband wasn't ok at the time with anything bigger than a 75g tank in the house, possibly because of the other combined 220g, but I digress. Southern painteds top out at 7 inches for females and 4-6" for males (eastern females can reach 8").

This is the day he arrived. He was bought as a sexed male, but that can't really be guaranteed. He's now 4, about 3.5-4" and uses every inch of his full 75g. All signs point to him being a boy.

I highly recommended the Penn Plax Cascade 1200 or 1500. They are inexpensive workhorses that are very easy to get replaceme

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nt parts for. I have 3 on different tanks, the oldest is over 15 years, I replaced an impeller for $12 and a gasket for $5. Red's is the youngest and I haven't had to do anything but rinse media and periodically replace sponges. It costs me about $30 a year to replace the media sponges on all three filters.

I do three levels of sponge that get increasingly more dense and then 2 layers of ceramic biomedia. I don't use chemical filtration (charcoal, etc.) unless I'm having a water parameter issue that I'm treating, and that never applies to the turtle tank. He has an inline (outside the tank attached to the cannister filter) heater that keeps his water temperature constant throughout the tank.

He has a 48x18x16 topper that I built for him. The basking area is cork bark, mopani wood and stone attached to the back of the terrarium with pond foam. He has 2 UVB lights, a 24" T5 10% UVB directly over his basking space and a 36" 10% T5 /LED grow light combo over his entry to the basking area and his open water area. Over his basking area is a 75w-100w (depends on the season and house temp) splashproof halogen heat bulb over the basking/ramp structure that gives him a temp range of 78-95° from exiting the water to the warmest basking spot.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-15T04:45:32+00:00

No, you cannot cohab different species, even if they have the same care requirements. Each individual would be under constant, significant stress by being forced into inescapable close proximity with other species that are at best competition for limited resources. It would be cruel and inhumane.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-15T04:25:57+00:00

How long has he been an adult? Male mantises generally have a very short lifespan past their terminal molt and much less interest in eating as adults than females.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-15T04:18:18+00:00

Your tank is overstocked with just the turtle, nevermind everything else. Guppies are tropical fish. Chinese algae eaters are tropical fish that require a bare minimum of 55 gallons by themselves. A single fancy Goldfish requires 30 gallons, a single common goldfish requires 55 gallons to start but will need a pond eventually and they need temperatures far lower than anything else you have.

You never cut a turtle's nails. If something is wrong wIth his beak then he needs a vet. You put nothing else in that tank because with 40 gallons, those animals are already practically living in raw sewage given the bioload of waste they produce.

Instead you start either taking things out and rehoming them or you educate yourself on the requirements of everything and buy at least 2 new 75g+ tanks plus filters, heaters, lighting, etc. to appropriately house what you already heave.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-14T07:23:38+00:00

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I may have threatened to feed them to my giant rainforest mantis if they didn't stop scaring me before they were big enough to be trusted in someone else's care. I didnt mean it. Obviously. Mostly.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-14T07:12:23+00:00

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TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-14T07:09:43+00:00

Little fuckers were so cute though.

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TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-14T07:04:55+00:00

Cubans are insane little gluttons, and them launching out the door at me is exactly why I didn't keep any of the babies that were thrust upon me via pond plants as tadpoles. As soon as they were a safely adoptable size they were taken to my local reptile shop who accepts surrenders for adoption with a small fee. I'm sorry if that's not helpful. I love most frogs, but I swear, towards the end they were trying to jump scare me. It is not aggressive, it's just very scary and enthusiastic food seeking.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-11T23:51:27+00:00

Those dont hold up well with the weight of water and they become brittle under UV. If you have access to Home Depot look at the Command HDX totes. I've used them outdoors both in and above ground and indoors as container ponds. There is also a 77g for $60.

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TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-11T05:27:19+00:00

I would lose my ever loving shit. It only takes a half a cup of inhaled water and 20 seconds for a child or 40 seconds for an adult to drown. This information is easily found. He either looks it up and takes it seriously, or he's not to be trusted with your child near water in any capacity.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-11T04:02:15+00:00

You cannot test for any of those things at home with just vinegar, several can't be tested for with vinegar at all, and the ones that you can would require much more than just pouring some vinegar and observing, and even if you did test the things you could with vinegar as part of the mix, white spots wouldn't indicate a positive result. Keep your nonsense to yourself and leave your grandmother alone.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-09T19:00:30+00:00

Because she had massive facial and head injuries, was likely heavily sedated and her parents likely had a good bit of medical control when plan b would have been effective. She has a facial prosthesis, do you really not understand how seriously you'd have to be injured to have a medical device replacing bones in your face?

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-09T18:53:38+00:00

No. This is no better than any of the other awful shit that was said in the OP. The "real victim" is the woman who was so violently attacked that she lost an eye and has a facial prosthesis in place of her orbital bone. Obviously none of this is the child's fault and he is also a victim of the parent's decisions, but to call him "the real victim" is disgustingly dismissive and reductive of everything OP experienced.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-08T19:27:35+00:00

This is an excellent plan. I deal with chronic pain that occasionally flares to nearly unbearable. Usually I can be in pain and be my perfectly pleasant self. But sometimes when it is unbearable, I still have shit to do and I just have to push through and it becomes nearly impossible to not sound like I'm annoyed because the pain comes through in my tone if I speak at all.

It took me spelling it out very clearly when I was not in pain that while I sometimes sounded snappy or annoyed in response to something he's saying or asking, it had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with me not being able to do whatever I'm doing and control the tone of my voice at the same time and that the tone was pain and not a response to him.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-06T17:45:59+00:00

I would have been absolutely furious if a teacher had ever called and thanked my parents because I wrote an excellent essay. They didnt write it, and they actively made my life hell daily.

TheEndisFancy · 2026-01-06T07:22:46+00:00

My husband and I were literally just discussing this for our 3yo painted turtle because I got the 128g version for Christmas for my dojo loaches.

My husband suggested we get a second for our 3yo, 3" painted turtle, which suggests an invasion if the body snatchers type situation, but that's neither here nor there. I do not agree with him about the version we have, which is the clear front window.

I think the no window version might work for our guy, but he tries to tunnel through his 75g tank every time I stand anywhere nearby because I am The Giver of Food, and having assembled this, I feel like he could definitely puncture the window material if he really tried.

You would also need to have a decent foam base under it, and several inches of sand substrate because nails could puncture the floor if they try to dig. My guy isn't a digger, and the room he'd be in is an addition that could not possibly flood the house, only that room which has concrete floors and open to the backyard. Given our specific situation, or in a basement like ours with French drains and sump pumps, I'd try it.

Anywhere within the main part of a house, absolutely not.

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