Tips for Enhancing Your Turtle's Habitat
Once you've decided to share your space with a pet turtle, you want to make its habitat the best it can be — for your turtle's health and happiness and so you can enjoy the company of your reptilian roommate. Read on for tips about enhancing your pet turtle's home.
Aquatic and Land Turtles Need Different Habitats
You have different opportunities to improve your pet turtle's home depending on whether you have an aquatic or land turtle and its specific species.
As their name indicates, aquatic turtles need a watery habitat. Some species love exploring in deep water, while others prefer just wading, giving you flexibility with how much of your aquarium is above and under water. All aquatic turtles also need a basking area completely out of the water. The turtle species you have points to how to design your decor: some turtles like to have plant-like decorations to help pull themselves out of the water, while others can easily walk in and out on their own.
You have options for land turtles too (both box turtles and tortoises). A land turtle's ideal habitat is a terrarium with more horizontal than vertical space. Box turtles need enough space to walk around, plus room for a bowl of water they can soak in. And tortoises love to dig, so make sure there's plenty of substrate for them to scratch this itch.
The type of turtle you have steers your creativity in enhancing their habitat. The Zilla care sheets (click the "turtles and tortoises" tab) provide details about a dozen species and what they need. If you're new to turtle keeping, get started with this guide to owning a pet reptile.
Substrate
Substrate is the name for the material that lines the bottom of your pet's habitat — basically, bedding for your turtle. Substrate makes the habitat look more natural and helps deal with waste, keeping your turtle's environment cleaner. Substrate can affect humidity levels, so you should choose it according to the turtle species you have.
Aquatic turtles need water-safe substrates like rock or medium-sized aquarium gravel. An underwater gravel layer also houses beneficial bacteria that break down turtle waste and, combined with your filtration system, helps keep the water from getting murky and smelly. You can get creative by adding substrate layers with different textures and colors.
Tip: Make sure gravel is bigger than your turtle can eat — about twice as large as the turtle's head — and avoid colors like green and red that might be mistaken for food.
For land turtles, you can use sand, gravel, or a terrarium liner. But since tortoises like to tunnel and burrow, enhance their habitat with substrates such as coconut husk or wood bark. Learn more about betting types in the Zilla bedding guide. (And if you have a tortoise, you don't need the terrarium liner.)
Lighting
Since they're ectothermic (cold-blooded), turtles bask to regulate their body temperature. Absorbing UVB rays also help them metabolize calcium. Make sure your turtle's habitat meets its specific needs for heat and light with, for example, a Pro Sol lighting fixture. This fixture allows you to create a desert or a tropical environment for your turtle. Use a Zilla Mini Halogen Bulb to provide heat and a Zilla Mini Compact Fluorescent Bulb for UVB/UVA light. Basking and UVB lights are different, and you will need both. Discover more about lighting & heating for your pet reptile in Zilla's comprehensive guide.
Just as you change up your decor when the weather gets cooler, your turtle may need some seasonal changes too. A higher-wattage light or additional heat source helps maintain a comfortable temperature during cooler months.
Rest Areas
Like humans, turtles need rest too. Both aquatic and land turtles love to bask, especially under a heat lamp.
Aquatic turtles need a dry basking area completely out of the aquarium water. That means it will be a visual feature of your turtle's habitat. You can create a custom habitat for your turtle as you learn his preference. For example, you can add a freestanding floating basking platform that rises and falls with the water level or add a basking platform ramp that stays in one spot.
In addition to a spot to warm up, turtles need a shadier spot to cool down. Turtles also like a bit of privacy, so providing your turtle with a cooler area where he can hide is ideal. A bark bend or a rock den are good options. Plants, ideally a combination of real and artificial, also offer camouflage. Turtles will eat real plants, so choose safe ones (these plants are poisonous to turtles) and monitor how much your turtle eats since you want it to get nutrients from other food sources too.
Enhancing Decor
Decorative items help your turtle relax, stay active and mentally stimulated, and make your turtle's habitat look better.
Store-bought decorative items aren't your only option. You can add elements from the natural world into your turtle habitat too. To make sure it's safe for your turtle, scrub anything you want to add really well with soap and water first or, better, boil it for a few minutes. If you want to add a small tree branch or two, note that hardwoods will last longer than softer woods. Remove the bark and let it soak in water for a few weeks if you want to minimize the tannins and water discoloration.
You can also change up your habitat a couple of times a year to give your turtle a fresh landscape to explore. There's no need to purchase anything extra — just move what you have around to make it different. Perhaps take a pic so you remember what you've done previously (and in case your turtle has a better memory than you do!).
Enhance Your Turtle's Habitat for Their Health and Happiness
You're now well on your way to creating a zoo-worthy habitat for your pet turtle and helping ensure it has the healthiest and happiest life possible. Want to tunnel even deeper into creating the best habitat for your turtle's needs? Explore the details in this Ultimate Guide to Turtles and Tortoises.
