Do You Need to Put Sand in a Turtle Enclosure? Understanding Sand for Turtle Keeping in One Article

Nowadays many people like to keep turtles. Turtles are animals with relatively strong vitality. Some people keep turtles purely for viewing, while others keep them to make a profit. Therefore, in our market, turtles not only have high ornamental value, but also high economic value.

Do you need to put sand in a turtle enclosure?

It depends on what kind of turtle you are keeping. However, because food residue may be buried in the sand, seriously affecting water quality and possibly making the turtle sick, it is recommended that if you do put sand in, it should first undergo professional treatment, or that you replace the sand with large stones.

1. Iron gall sand (tie dan sha): by visual assessment this is the most suitable for keeping turtles. Many experienced keepers choose this substrate. Its characteristics are that it is rounded with a frosted surface, and the particles are large so they are not easily swallowed by mistake and do not easily clog undergravel filtration. Basically, everyone using undergravel filtration chooses this substrate. It is worth noting that this substrate does contain metallic iron, and a strong magnet can pick it up. Whether this is good or bad is unclear, but basically no problems have been heard of because of it.  

2. Black ceramic sand (hei tao sha): artificially sintered ceramic granules, small and rounded, with no effect on pH or hardness. It contains gaps invisible to the human eye, suitable for bacteria to colonize. Young turtles are unlikely to swallow it by mistake, and it is harmless if adult turtles swallow it.  

3. Mouse sand / fine sand: very fine sand with no effect on pH or hardness. A variety of colors are available (avoid choosing red). It protects turtle claws very well, and claws cannot be damaged by this substrate. It is very fine and harmless if swallowed.  

4. Black gold sand (hei jin sha): although it is a very fine black sand, careful observation shows it is actually tiny black glass fragments with sharp edges and corners. It may scratch turtle claws, and if swallowed may damage or scratch the turtle's stomach and intestines.  

5. River sand / pearl sand: mixed small stones of various colors slightly larger than black gold sand, with sharp edges and corners. If swallowed, it is very likely to scratch the turtle's stomach and intestines.  

6. Coral sand: small fragments of coral. Coral can adsorb impurities, but the color will gradually turn brown, and the coral will release calcium powder that dissolves in the water, making the water harder and more alkaline. When the turtle basks on its back, white calcium powder dry patterns will appear on its shell. Apart from being suitable for some turtles, it is not recommended for the vast majority.  

7. Yuhua stone / pebbles: fine if the turtle is large enough, but if the turtle is about the same size as the stones or even smaller than them, it is not suitable. If the stones are too large, the turtle may use too much force when grabbing them and break its claws. The gaps are too large and the smooth surface is not suitable for bacteria to grow. 

What issues need attention during turtle breeding  

1. Turtles are semi-aquatic turtles. Although they live in water, they must come out of the water to breathe air and go onto land to reproduce.  

2. A turtle without a shell is not a turtle. Because the shell is heavy and the body is dense, if a turtle is in the water with all four limbs facing up, its back toward the water and belly up, it often cannot right itself immediately and is prone to choking on water and dying.  

3. Keeping the water quality fresh at all times is the basic condition for raising turtles well. Practice mixed farming of turtles and fish, using fish to regulate the water, ensuring that turtles are kept in high-quality water.  

4. Use special compound feed for turtles according to different growing seasons.  

5. Turtle feces and urine are relatively toxic and have a decaying effect on the turtle's tail, so the tail end should be protected from infection.  

6. When keeping turtles, do a good job of the “three preventions” (anti-theft, disease prevention, escape prevention), with anti-theft as the priority.  

7. The secret to successful turtle breeding is one species, two feed, three management. These three links complement each other and none can be missing. Only by doing all of them well can successful turtle keeping be ensured. 

Special rearing techniques for young turtles  

1. Young turtle pond: a pond dedicated to raising young turtles should be built in a rectangular shape, with the length depending on the terrain and the scale of production. The width of the young turtle pond should suitably be 120 cm, and a 30 cm high wall should be built around it. To prevent young turtles from stacking on top of one another, young turtles of different age groups or different sizes should be raised in separate ponds, which makes management easier. The specific method is to divide a long pond horizontally into several small elongated ponds.  

Each small pond is 60 cm wide and divided into two parts, water and land. The land can be left on one side or on both sides. In this way the water pool can be built as a square small pond of 60 cm × 60 cm, with a pond depth of 80 cm and a water depth maintained at 70 cm. The junction between the water pool and the land should be built as a 30-degree slope so that young turtles can freely come ashore. The pond bottom is best paved with hard clay. A feeding platform is set at the water-land junction, plastered with lime-sand mixture or cement at the water-land junction, or built with bamboo or wood, with a width of 30 cm.  

2. Stocking density: stocking density varies with age or individual size. Generally, 1-year-old turtles are stocked at 20 per sq m; 2-year-old turtles at 15; and 3-year-old turtles at 10.  

3. Feeding and management: feed small fish, small shrimp, snail meat, mussel meat, livestock and poultry viscera, as well as rice, soybean cake, cornmeal, etc. All feed pellets given should be made small and palatable. The feeding amount is 5%-8% of the young turtle's body weight. Feed 3 times a day, in the morning, at noon and in the evening. In high-temperature seasons, build a shade awning to prevent direct sunlight on the young turtles and also to guard against the water temperature rising too high.

Prospects for turtle farming  

In recent years, due to factors such as the extensive use of pesticides and indiscriminate human capture, the natural resources of turtles have noticeably decreased. However, as social demand has risen sharply, their economic value has become higher and higher, so that the contradiction between market supply and demand is very prominent.  

To make up for the shortage of natural resources and meet market demand, in the early 1970s, Hunan, Shanghai and other places had already carried out artificial rearing and breeding of turtles. By the 1980s, with the deepening of related scientific research and the success of artificial breeding, this emerging industry was promoted and developed to a great extent. Turtle output increased from less than 500 tons in the early 1990s to 10,000 tons by the end of 2002, with a commercial price of 150-180 yuan/kg. In particular, with the introduction of the pollution-free farming policy advocated by the state, and because turtles themselves tolerate rough rearing and have strong disease resistance, pollution-free, large-scale and industrialized turtle farming has unlimited prospects.

It can be seen from this that the value of turtles is very high, so their development prospects are also very good. As people's consumption levels continue to rise, turtles have also become a relatively common delicacy on the table. Therefore, for farmers who want to make a profit in the turtle farming industry, there are still very good prospects.