Ended up with some red ear sliders

[corykitty516]

What am I the freakin' SPCA

Well I have now in my possession two red ear sliders about 3"-4". Since all I have free at the moment I have them set up in a 10 gallon which I am certain is too small for them. The water part is filtered and heated and I;ve just put in a reptile bulb. Ther are rocks and clay pots for them to get up on.
So right now they've been feasting on turtle sticks and zucchini (which they TORE UP like it was the best stuff EVER!!) and they are going to have to survive that way way for about a week because I am fixing to go to Tennessee.


So here's what I need to know ... I just finished the pond for my goldfish. Has anyone ever "fenced off" a portion for turtles so they can coexist? if so how'd you do it?
If the pond doesnt work out how about a shallow rubbermaid thingy with some pond liner in it?
How fast do they grow and is there a "gallons per inch of turtle rule?"
AND... what is a good feeding schedule? How about live things? Do they need suppliments?

I'm off googling all of this but if anyone has any personal experience I would appreciate any advice.

 

[shuhu]

I'm not too sure but I've seen some that grew to like 5" in a year, and I believe they can grow as big as 12" (30cm), you can feed them live mealworms, they love those, earthworms (haven't tryed this), small fish (the cheap ones), sweet water shrimp, aquatic snails, water hyacinths, fruits or simply comercial turtle bites that comes in many sizes.

I don't think that you should let them share the water with fish, because they need very powerfull filters since they can do a lot of mess with their poo... which it's way more than what fish do, even goldfish. I have only tryed this when they were little and shared a tank with tropicalwater fish for like 3 weeks, but now that they are even bigger it's much much more (they have their own tank now)

You also need to provide them calcium (for their shell) vitamin A (for their eyes) and most likely "turtle eye drops" because they tend to get their eyes swollen at times

If you can provide a very wide and deep place to swim (as opposed to a shallow one) it's way better for them, but make the dry part easy to access, like with a ramp in many levels with rocks or something like that.

I recommend that you take a look at this website:
http/www.turtletimes.com (specially the forum)

Hope this was helpfull

 

[corykitty516]

Hey thanks ... all the info I've been coming up with so far has been pretty generic. I read somwhere about the percent of "meat" that should be included in a turtle diet. I dug some earthworms from the (all organic) garden for them sooo do the earthworms and can o grasshoppers count as meat? I havent been able to feed a live fish yet .... Is that bad? can I just feed bugs and things instead or do they really need live fish?

 

[shuhu]

mmm, as with any other living thing, variety is better, you don't necesarilly have to feed them fish, usually what you look for in the live food is the proteins, but be sure to give them vegetables as well, they will probably won't eat that much veggies or fruits at this age but when they get bigger they will.

If possible feed them comercial food on a daily basis as the "main dish" since these are already very well balanced, some even include portions of vitamin A and Calcium (you still need to provide these as supplements) and they are not that expensive. Just be sure to get them in the appropiate size for your turtles as there are small bites and bigger ones almost the size of dog food.

And as a treat and variety (from time to time) you can give them the live food, lettuce, spinach, finely chopped mixed vegetables, raw beef heart, cooked chicken (haven't tryed this) and basically what I told you before ... ohh they like aquatic plants aswell The more variety the better, in my experience our turtles LOVE mealworms but I can't just feed them those. You should not let them get used to only one type of food btw.

So, no, you should NOT just feed them bugs and earthworms, remember that they are in the growing stage of their live.

Also for ideas check this out
http/www.turtletimes.com/Forums/index.php?act=SF&f=17&st=