Red Eared Slider tanks, and turtle tanks, in general, tend to look a little too boring. One of the best ways to solve this is to add a substrate. But there are a lot of substrates, so how do you choose the best one for your Red-Eared Slider?
The most popular substrates are sand, gravel, and river rocks, each one with its own advantages and disadvantages. The best possible substrate for a Red-Eared Slider tank is a combination of river rocks and sand.
In the end, it’s up to you which substrate you will use, but in order to make an informed choice you should know which exactly are the advantages and disadvantages of each substrate, as some of them can be harder to clean and maintain than others, and one of them can actually be dangerous for your turtle. So let’s take a closer look at each substrate.
River Rocks
River rock is one of the best substrates for a red-eared slider tank, but not the best one.
River rocks are small to medium-sized rocks that usually come from a river. While those rocks are in the river they get moved all over the place by the water, and as a result, they become very round and lose all of their edges. So they are perfect for decorating tanks, or everywhere around the house since there is no risk of getting cut or injured in any way.
Even a smaller river rock should be too big for a turtle to be able to eat them. If you think that a river rock might be just too small that you can remove it. But most of the time there is no need for that.
As a substrate I would classify them as ok, they are not that good but not that great either. One of the big advantages is that they are relatively heavy so they won’t be moved around by the turtle when it’s swimming around, nor by you when you clean the tank. Another advantage is that they can be easily removed when you want to empty the tank to properly clean it.
The disadvantage is that river rocks leave a lot of empty space between them. So a lot of dirt will get between them and this will make the water get dirty faster, and the aspect of the tank won’t be too pleasant.
River rocks present no danger to the turtle, and they can give the tank a nice look. But in order to maintain that nice look, you will have to clean the tank quite often.
Gravel
The worst substrate for a turtle tank.
In my opinion, gravel is the worst substrate that you can use. This is because there is a risk that your turtle might end up swallowing some gravel. And this could block the intestinal tract of the turtle. If something like this happens you will have a lot to deal with. Even if the turtle somehow manages to eliminate the swallowed grave, it will still do a lot of damage on the inside, which will most probably lead to infections.
The chances of a turtle eating gravel are pretty high, and it’s not something uncommon. Turtles can easily confuse it with food. So the danger of something like this happening is real.
Leaving aside the possibility that the gravel might be swallowed by your turtle. Gravel is otherwise a good substrate. It has enough weight so it won’t move around too much while your turtle swims around. And it’s really easy to clean. You can just use a water siphon with a net, or something similar, covering one of the ends, and the gravel won’t be removed from the tank.
In the end, gravel is definitely not a good option if you take into consideration the risk that your turtle will eat it. If it weren’t for that gravel would have been the perfect substrate. But due to that risk, I would suggest you stay away from it.
Sand
The safest and cleanest option.
Out of all three substrates, I personally think that sand is the best one. But not all the sand is the same, for a turtle tank you will want to use sand that has bigger grains, soft sand will only cause a mess in the tank because it’s very light it will get thrown away everywhere when the turtle swims.
There is a chance that your turtle will eat a couple of grains of sand every once in a while, by mistake. But there is no reason to worry. Sand is very small, and won’t block the intestines, and no infection can take place due to sand being eaten. So there is no safety problem.
Another cool thing about sand is that it can come in a huge variety of colors, actually sand can have any color imaginable. To obtain those colors sand is chemically treated, but that doesn’t make the sand dangerous to the turtle in any way, so don’t worry about that if you are interested in colored sand.
As a substrate, it completely covers the bottom of the tank, so there will be nothing that will get past it.
But when it comes to cleaning you have to be careful. Sand is pretty small and light, so you have to be careful of how far you hold the siphon, if you take it too close to the sand, some of the sand will get sucked away. But this is not such a big problem. When you clean the tank, you just have to keep the siphon as far away as possible in the beginning, and then get closer little by little, when you see that sand is starting to get sucked, move the siphon back a little, and use that distance from no on when you clean the tank.
I personally think that sand is one of the best options when it comes to substrates. But there is another possibility that is even better. And that is to combine sand with river rock.
Combining River Rock With Sand
The best possible substrate for a turtle tank.
By combining river rock with sand you will be able to completely get rid of the disadvantages of river rock. And you will be able to give your tank a very interesting look.
River rocks can also come in a few different colors besides the normal grey, and light brown. They can also be completely white or completely black. And since white and black go well with every other color, you can imagine how many possibilities you will have if you combine them with the colored sand.
And since the sand will fill the space between the rocks, there will be nothing that will get stuck under the rocks. And the river rocks will also help a little by making it a little harder for the sand to get sucked by the siphon when you clean the tank.
This combination only brings advantages, there is no disadvantage that you get if you combine both.
Recommended Products
I haven’t tried all the different types of substrates on the market, but I can recommend to you the products that I have tried and that worked out for me and my turtles. At the end of the article, I will provide you with links to where you can get them if you are interested.
At the moment I have two turtle tanks, and one in one of them I use Imagitarium Black Aquarium Sand, which is simple black sand that helps the development of healthy bacteria in the water, and because it’s black it makes all the mess on the bottom of the tank hard to see. And I also use some white rocks that are usually for painting, but I just use them as simple white rocks.
For my other tank, where I keep my two female turtles I went with something more colorful so I used some orange sand in combination with some white rocks. The tank looks really great but the problem is that you can clearly see when too much dirt gathers on top of the substrate, and it doesn’t look that great then. So even if the orange sand looks great, unless you want to have to clean your tank often I would suggest you go with a different color, maybe green or something like that.
If you are interested in the products I just mentioned here are some links to Amazon from where you can get them:
- Imagitarium Black Aquarium Sand
- Imagitarium Black Aquarium Sand
- Colored Sand
- White Rocks
- Grey Rocks
- Black Rocks
- Normal River Rocks
The last thing that I want to tell you is to make sure that you wash everything that you plan to add to your tank, this includes sand, rocks, and gravel.
Conclusion
As you can see each one of them has advantages and disadvantages. And it’s up to you to make a choice and balance the advantages with the disadvantage.
I hope the article helped you in making a choice. But in case you still have some questions left, you can leave them in the comment section and I will answer them as soon as possible.
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this was very helpful for me as a new mother of a red eared slider!