Building a pond for South-American Snapping Turtles

In 2008 I started building a pond for my 2 South-American Snappers (Chelydra acutirostris). Most unfortunately I had to stop constructing soon due to circumstances. Last February we started once again with building.

The pond is located on top of the barn in the frontyard. After 4 years of standing still, the bottomplate of the pond to be, first had to be cleaned up as meanwhile a lot of debris had falen onto it.






Once cleaned up, we could start leveling the base.






The cement we use is made directly, on the ground, by mixing sand and morter and than wettening it.




The pond's bottomplate ready.




A few days later we started with constructing the walls of the pond. These reach 80 cm up.










With the walls ready, we made a smaller wall in the pond itself at the streetside of the pond. Here we construct the sand area for egg-deposition.




After this, the walls were plastered.






In front of the wall that forms the sand area, a heap of concrete and rock debris was used to form the base for a ramp. The debris was covered with cement afterwards. The cement was made on the spot.












Than we continued to plaster the walls.










After having dried for a week, water was added to the pond to see if it holds. The water can not reach higher than 40 cm as at that altitude, a few small pipes arrange for too much water to be drained out of the pond.




After being filled with water for a week, in which the cement had dried out and all chemicals were removed from the cement, the pond was drained again and refilled with fresh water. Once refilled, the turtles were finally released in their new enclosure.






The sand area is covered with transparent plastic plates to prevent rain from turning the sand area into a mudpool.




Than, the pond was filled wit waterhyacinth, which, by chance, were full with egs of aquatic snails.






A few of the snails themselves.




A container with lavarocks and reed was put into the pond to function as a small biological filter. It was first put into a corner of the pond, but fear of escaping turtles made me put it in the middle of the pond.








A local freshwater shrimp, which also ended up in the pond.




One of the turtles looking for some shade.




Now, about 6 months later, the rest of the pond, like the pillars and the walls below it are being finished too.




One of the inhabitants of the pond, a female, was given to me by the local zoo, Zoo El Pantanal in Guayaquil. It was given to me for breeding purposes.

The snapper enclossure in the zoo itself.




The new female. The pond houses now 1 adult male, 2 adult females and a juvenile female.











Last week a small improvement was made by connecting a tube to make refilling a bit easier than before with the gardenhose. The drain at the bottom of the pond was also changed from a small diameter tube to a large diameter tube. This will ensure the pond to drain faster and with more force.

The new tube for refilling...




The first female, called "Patricia".

Wow. Amazing job, congratz Ferry !

Do you have any idea of how big is the pond ?
And what do you feed them with ? and how ? :P

You could save the water that is drained off the pond in order to fill it back later with that water too

Wow nice job, it's very impressive, beautiful, how many turtles did you put in the pond ?
More pics plz !

skwateur a écrit:Wow. Amazing job, congratz Ferry !

Do you have any idea of how big is the pond ?
And what do you feed them with ? and how ? :P

About 5 x 2.5 meter, and 40 cm waterdepth.
The turtles are fed with chickenliver, fish, shrimp and cat-chow.

You could save the water that is drained off the pond in order to fill it back later with that water too

Too much work. Besides, during the rainy season the pond is filled everyday by rainfall.

Oh yeah, true

Very great job !