meet ICE BOX ;-)

[spencea15]

I've had the turtles since 1987. Right now they're in a 55 gallon tank. I just got them a 120. I'm taking my time putting it together. It's going to be pretty cool when it's all done that's for sure. Lemme get you some pics ... hang on

They are older then me.

[nickcoletti]

DAMN THOSE ARE SOME OLD TURTLES!


my brother use to catch turtles in a river near my house, we once had around 25 painted turtles in my back yard living in a knee deep swimming pool. turtles are pretty neat! what kind of turtles do you have? what do you feed them? im sure the 120 is going to be a SWEET upgrade for them! thats such a big tank, im sure we can fit Jo in there... frogG's and turtles get along right? haha

haha spencea15! i was born in 1986, its close for me also!

[mayfair]

I have red eared sliders, and I've head them since they were born. I'm not keeping the frogs and the turtles together. The frogs are at work, the turtles are at home. I feed them turtle sticks. They're about the easiest pets in the world to keep.

[nickcoletti]

lol, they are easy to keep! i was kidding about the frogs by the way, i was referring to frogGer...

the turtles we use to have ate frogs, im not sure if all turtles eat frogs though. so what other kinda crazy stuff do you have in tanks, you have turtles, frogs, and you had an octopus, what else is there?

[mayfair]

You name it, I've probably had it. Snakes, frogs, lizzards, hermit crabs ( ), and obviously both fresh and saltwater fish

[nickcoletti]

ive never done the hermit crabs although i always wanted one when i was younger. i too have had lizards, frogs, fresh and salt aquariums including sting rays and an octopus. i even have had rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, a chinchilla, dogs, cats, and i even had 5 chickens one summer in my back yard (in a normal city neighborhood ). we are the weird ones on my street! i always wanted a snake but my pop's has got a phobia of them, oh well! this is the tank im working on right now... its my 24G nano cube



you are the only other person i have known to have an octopus other than myself... we are such a special breed haha!

[mayfair]

Nick that looks AWESOME !!! Those clows are jonsin for an anomone though ... LOL !!

[nickcoletti]

lol, i hear that often! actually they are just fine without an anemone, and its rare to find a pair like that. once they mate, they remain a pair forever and the fish catchers and pet stores will never separate them because of that, its pretty neat actually!

i wish i could have an anemone though, in a 24G there is not enough room for one due to the fact that they keep moving around until they are comfortable and sting everything on its journey to find that special place. i had a nice anemone in my 55g reef and it was NEVER happy, it always ended up almost dead in my filter because it thought it was a gypsy!

[nickcoletti]

so wheres them turtle tank pictures?!?!?!

[mayfair]

I just loaded them up ... hang on a second while I load them onto Photobucket

[mayfair]

Ok ... here we go ...

First, I took a piece of foam and figured out the shape that I wanted. I didn't meant for it to look like Florida, but it kinda does ...

Here's what it looked like:



Then I started shaping it with a file and stuff:




Then I took a heat gun to it to give it some texture:



I then attached it to a box so that I could work both sides at the same time:



First, I used grout called Hemp , mixed with water and something called Fortifier and slapped it on:



After it dried, I did some more shaping:



Another coat of Grout to give it some more texture:



Then, I did the final coat with a darker colored mortar, again mixed with water and fortifier, but i made it VERY watery:



As it was drying, I worked it with a sprty bottle to kinda wash away some of the mortar so that the lighter grout color would come through ever so slightly. It's really heard to see it in these pics:



And here are some final pics. It's really hard to see the color differences and the texture, but it's there:








whadda ya think?

[nickcoletti]

DUDE!!... thats friggin amazing, thats about as far out of the box one can think! i have never seen that done before, did you get the idea from a write up or did you just wing it on your own? it really looks professional

so is that going to fit in a corner, it looks like its bigger than 12" on one side or does your 120 have 16" width?

[mayfair]

Thanks Nick,

I stole the basic idea from a frog website, and then kinda reworked it a bit. My 120 gal is 48"x48"x24", so it'll fit pretty good in a corner. I just hope it works. It's soaking in a trash can now

[nickcoletti]

thats a nice sized tank, sounds like its measurements where picked out by an actually turtle! haha, i bet they will really enjoy the extra room. im not sure if anyone is curious how this is going to turn out, but when you put that new tank together take some pictures. i would like to see how everything comes together... ive always had a high interest for aquariums and everything that goes in them!