advice required

[ltbooth]

can someone please enlighten me as to how long you must wait before adding turtles to the tank that you have set up. i have been told a week for the water to condition but after alot of reading, i have found that it can take months for the water to reach the required levels of healthy bacteria so as to break down nitrites and other such things.

[ltbooth]

can anyone help?

[Graham]

A week should be plenty, if the bacteria don't have something to feed on (turt waste) they won't multiply and will eventually die off. Provided your filter is big enough with plenty of bio-media then the bacteria will quickly colonise it and you should be OK, just keep monitoring the water quality every few days for the first few weeks and do partial changes if neccessary.
If your setup is correct then everything should settle down quite quickly and the water changes will become less frequent.

[ltbooth]

thanks for the advice graham, you say a week should be plenty so should i give it longer or can it be done over a shorter period of time?

[Graham]

I would just put them in after a week, there's really no reason to wait any longer, and the sooner they start fouling the water the sooner the bacteria will colonise the filter!

You can kick start the filter with some Nutrafin Cycle or similar, just follow the directions on the bottle.