here is the gentle giant. they are all outgrowing the 40 breeder, but i hope to have a pond for him this spring. the snapper is now 5.75". the peninsula cooter is 5.75". and the western painted is 4.75". i still have the whisper 5 on there, but had to add a fluval 404 after an almost instant water quality crash took down one of the goldfish and almost the other 3. gynmonkey was over and fed them their regular amount. within 15 minutes the goldfish were on the bottom and one was being bit at by the turtles. when i looked at them you could see film on their skin (extra slime coat) and gill damage (probably a burn form some sort of build up, ammonia, nitrite, etc.). so i put the goldfish in a bucket and did a 100% water change. all made it fine except the goldfish that went down the hardest and the fastest. recently i added the pair of convicts. after a water chaneg the male started to beat up the female, so i put him in the turtle tank since he couldnt play nicely. he went straight under the snapper's hide and sat 2" in front if his face for about a half an hour, then was fine and started to explore the tank. the snapper didnt even try to snap at him (more evidence that if snappers are only fed pellets and kept form getting hungry, they arent that bad). the other turtles lunged at him a few times and he learned to avoid them. a few days later i didnt want the female to start going for the babies, so she went in with the male in the turtle tank. i want to see if they will breed in there (which i think they will). they are doing fine. so now there are the 3 turtles, 3 goldfish, and a breeding pair of convicts. hopefully in the spring i can put in a pond and thats where the turtles will go. im not worried about keeping the two baskers, but i really like the snapper and if i could i would do an indoor pond setup for him. yesterday the powersun didnt come on. i tried a different bulb in the fixture and it worked, so its not the fixture. im not going to worry about paying for shipping to send it in, then pay shipping to get a new one, that would probably cost as much as a new one from my work. i will stop by the hardware store and see if they have any mercury vapor bulbs. if not i am thinking about the capture the sun bulb online. i will also check our wholesaler lists at work to see what i can get in there.

Cool pix. Thanks for sharing. B)