Cleaning the Tank
Cleaning the turtle tank is one of the most difficult jobs of having turtles. If you are not able to clean a tank or think that it will be to much work I suggest you look at other animals that are less dirty such as fish. The turtle's tank needs to be cleaned at least every 6 to 8 weeks or sooner depending on the filter that you have. The first step is to have separate cleaning supplies for the turtle tank then anything else. You do not want to be using a cloth that you washed dishes with to clean the turtle tank.
The easiest way to clean the tank is to drain all of the water out and wash all of the rocks and clean the filter. I can do the job by myself but if my wife is with me we can get it done in about 2 hours. The first thing that I do is to turn off and unplug the filter and the light to the hood. After that I remove the hood and and put the light fixture in a safe place and then place the rest of the hood by the sink to wash it. The next thing is to remove the filter and take it to the kitchen sink. I then drain all of the water out of the tank. This is done using a gravel vacuum. You can get gravel vacuum at Petsmart or at most pet stores. I empty the water into individual buckets and then empty them. After we are finished draining all of the water out we then scoop all of the rocks out using a cup and then by hand. The rocks are place into a bucket to be washed later. I take the turtles basking rock and the cinder block and wash that with mild soap and water. We wash the hood of the tank with soap and water also. Next we take apart the filter and wash each piece individually. After we are done washing the filter we fill it back up with water and set it to the side. The next step is to wash all of the rocks in the tank. We use a strainer to dump all of the rocks into and run water of them to make sure that they are clean. The turtle tank is then brought to the sink and scrubbed with a mild detergent and then washed out.
When all of the items have been cleaned we start add all of the things back to the turtle tank. First we put the gravel rocks back in and then the cinder block and basking rocks. After we put the filter back in we begin to fill the tank using buckets of water. When the tank gets up to the fill line we then turn the filter on and let that run for about an hour before the turtles go back into the tank.
This sounds like a lot of work and it is. Once you do this a couple of times it becomes clockwork and it seems like we are getting faster and faster at cleaning the tank. Some people do not drain the entire turtle tank and just use a gravel filter at the bottom and drain the water down some and then fill it back up. I feel better when I take everything out of the tank and scrub it because it looks like it is brand new again. While looking on the Petsmart page I found a new tool that I want to buy that I think will speed up the process of filling the tank back up. It is the Python No Spill Clean and Fill Kit. This eliminates the process of having to carry buckets back and fourth from the sink.
The final phase of cleaning the tank is to clean the kitchen area where all of the turtles stuff was. We scrub everything down using antibacterial soap including the counter and each individual sink. When we are finished we wipe out the sinks with a paper towel.
