New with some questions. Water issues!

[Gpdriftwood]

You're pretty lucky that your tank cycled in only three weeks. But even so...you have an extremely heavily-stocked 30-gallons of water, and the stock in it is very heavily fed, so crazy nitrate levels are, IMHO, to be expected. Expecting plants to be much help is likely a pipe-dream in this case; the total mass of plant matter needs to exceed that of the animal matter by a huge margin, and that won't be the case in this tank.

Nitrate levels that high can't be doing those fish any favours, and that in turn means that they aren't the healthiest, best food source for your turtles.

If it were my tank, I'd take out all of the fish and just keep the turtles. This would allow you to do 100% water changes without any worries about chlorine, pH, etc as long as the temp is about right, and I'd do at least one of those per week. I always remove aquatic turtles from their tank to be fed in a separate smaller container, then place them back into their main tank after they have eaten and, ideally, also had a big bowel movement. Turtles produce massive amounts of ammonia and other waste, so this practice keeps the main tank much cleaner, much longer. But, of course, everybody wants to watch an Alligator Snapper "fishing" for its prey, so if you insist upon that you will have to feed them in the display tank and accept the extra cleaning that goes with it.

In any case...you will be needing to upgrade that tank size soon. These guys don't grow as fast as something like a Redtail Catfish...but they do grow pretty quickly and will soon outgrow that tank.

Agree w everything said. Huge bio load and overfeeding. Get all the fish out and get the turtles on pellets. If u do want to keep w live feeders, I would only do 12-20 every other week at their current size personally. I love turtles and kept nothing but for years before I started keeping fish. 50-90% water changes were constant (usually twice a week in a 90gal pond) and any attempt at live plants were dug up and destroyed. But, turtles are awesome! Best of luck.

 

[Pryme]

Agree w everything said. Huge bio load and overfeeding. Get all the fish out and get the turtles on pellets. If u do want to keep w live feeders, I would only do 12-20 every other week at their current size personally. I love turtles and kept nothing but for years before I started keeping fish. 50-90% water changes were constant (usually twice a week in a 90gal pond) and any attempt at live plants were dug up and destroyed. But, turtles are awesome! Best of luck.

My common snapping turtles will destroy anything in the tank I could only do floating plants if I wanted to in there. But the AST(at least this size) do not disturb anything. They glide around very stealth without touching anything really. So I could plant with them.
I’m thinking of setting up a feeding tank with a spare 10 gal but we will see.
I already have a separate 29gal feeder tank that I store minnows, sunfish and crayfish in. Less in winter now though.

as for the 12-20 minnows every two weeks that is less than they have been eating but not my a huge amount. I usually put in 35-40 minnows but they last a few weeks before it’s down to 8-12 or so. I am going to start only doing 20 max though.

 

[jjohnwm]

The single Alligator Snapper that I owned eventually tamed enough that it could be easily handled, picked up and moved to a separate container for feeding. It doesn't take a specially set up "feeding tank"; all you need is a 5-gallon bucket, filled with several inches of water from the turtle tank. If the turtle hasn't finished the food within about 10 minutes or so...you are feeding too much. The bucket should be placed somewhere warm so that it doesn't cool significantly during the feeding period. Once my snapper had achieved a carapace length of about 9 inches, I cut down its feeding to twice a week, and later still down to once weekly. At that point...since I was doing a 100% water change weekly anyways...I simply performed that later in the day after feeding and "de-poopification" were completed and discontinued the separate feeding container completely.

It's neither necessary nor desirable for the turtle (or pretty much any animal) to be stuffed to the gills 24/7, or for it to grow at the absolute maximum rate possibly attainable.

I continued to bulk up its pellet diet with gut-loaded frozen feeders and with chunks of home-made gel foods, but I never fed live stuff. I personally don't like the idea of feeding living things to other things. In any case, once the turtle gets tame, the "fishing" becomes less enthusiastic; that big head with its wiiiiiide open mouth is turned towards any food offered and any pretense of sitting still and luring prey into its maw is pretty much forgotten as the turtle moves in for the snap!

 

[Pryme]

The single Alligator Snapper that I owned eventually tamed enough that it could be easily handled, picked up and moved to a separate container for feeding. It doesn't take a specially set up "feeding tank"; all you need is a 5-gallon bucket, filled with several inches of water from the turtle tank. If the turtle hasn't finished the food within about 10 minutes or so...you are feeding too much. The bucket should be placed somewhere warm so that it doesn't cool significantly during the feeding period. Once my snapper had achieved a carapace length of about 9 inches, I cut down its feeding to twice a week, and later still down to once weekly. At that point...since I was doing a 100% water change weekly anyways...I simply performed that later in the day after feeding and "de-poopification" were completed and discontinued the separate feeding container completely.

It's neither necessary nor desirable for the turtle (or pretty much any animal) to be stuffed to the gills 24/7, or for it to grow at the absolute maximum rate possibly attainable.

I continued to bulk up its pellet diet with gut-loaded frozen feeders and with chunks of home-made gel foods, but I never fed live stuff. I personally don't like the idea of feeding living things to other things. In any case, once the turtle gets tame, the "fishing" becomes less enthusiastic; that big head with its wiiiiiide open mouth is turned towards any food offered and any pretense of sitting still and luring prey into its maw is pretty much forgotten as the turtle moves in for the snap!

Why did you get rid of yours? How big did your get? Did you keep it in a stock tank? I’ve thought about that for the future.

I have seen them eating from tweezers and would love to be able to gut load things like pellets. They won’t eat the mazuri pellets I have for them.
I would have to withhold live fish until they took something else.

 

[Pryme]

Found this big boy today. 180 gallon.
The only thing I’m wondering is why there is a slight dip in both the plastic cross braces, anyone know?

not sure on the manufacturer but the glass is 1/2” thick.

 

[deeda]

The dip in the plastic cross braces is probably from the lights the previous owner used. Do you have any other info from the previous owner on how he had this tank setup or how long he had it?

 

[Jexnell]

I am by no means an expert. But from what I see, the fake wood colored plastic trim, denotes an older tank as the manufacturers have been using black for some time now. With that said it may have speent years sitting under older bulb lighting that made lots of excessive heat. That heat then slightly caused the brace to sag some possibly due to something heavy on the brace while it was heated up.

 

[Pryme]

The dip in the plastic cross braces is probably from the lights the previous owner used. Do you have any other info from the previous owner on how he had this tank setup or how long he had it?

Was used with saltwater he said and hasn’t been used in 7mo he said. It’s been in a cold garage.

I’m thinking of cutting out the interior silicone and using api aquarium sealant and just redoing the inside just in case.
I will only have about 8-10” of water in it at first but if there would be a leak I’m sure it’s at the bottom with my luck.
What do you guys think?

 

[Jexnell]

Do a test run. Set it up just the stand and tank in a water spill safe area, garage driveway etc. Make it level, fill it up and leave it be for a week. Then you know if it leaks or not.

 

[FJB]

Looks like a nice older tank. From the color of the trim, it looks at it may be an old Perfecto tank, which are very good quality. There could still be an sticker on the bottom, between the glass and the trim (visible with tank upside down).
If it were me, unless I believe it is leaking, I would just test it as in a place where leaks wouldn't be a problem. I would test it for several days at room temperature or similar.
It may just be fine as is for the 8-10 inches you want to maintain. Resealing the whole thing is always an option and it is not too difficult. God luck!