Question about turtles

[ang7880]

Hi wuvmybetta...

I have a 10 gallon set up for our turtle... it's about 60-70% full with water. I have small river rocks in his tank.. no gravel, as they like to eat anything and everything... so I would remove that if I were you. My husband and I drove down to the river and got some large rocks to stack in the tank for a land/basking area. Right now, I'm just using a regular office lamp for a basking lamp...that's supposed to be fine for a while.. I'll be investing in a proper basking lamp soon. Here are some pics of our setup...Squirt. As for filters, we have a fully submersible pump, perfect for reptiles... We've got the MicroClean 316, made by Zoo Med...www.zoomed.com

Best wishes to you, your daughter and the turtle!

 

[wuvmybetta]

Thanks for the help! Last night I disconnected the ug filter and stuck a spare penguin 170 that I had on there, I added a few more inches of water, enough to make the water trickle out of the filter. Today I'll disassemble it all, remove the gravel (maybe ) & add more rocks , I think an office lamp would be fine, I have one on my desk and it seems to generate lots of heat when it's on so maybe I'll buy him something like that. Thanks again~

 

[Feline]

Just a side note on turtle's health.

Another of a turtle my hubby's parents used to keep in the past died of pneumonia. Symptoms: blowing out bubbles, coughing, sneezing

So make sure the room temperature / water temperature is warm enough for them.

 

[Canthus]

well if you are that worried then you should seperate them until the little one gets stronger i used to keep turtles and if the little can't get food he will die and he will get to the point to were he is to weak to eat

 

[wuvmybetta]

hey ang
I just checked out those pics you posted and squirt has himself a pretty sweet set-up or should I say...sweeeet ( we've seen Nemo 3 times so far ,no more for us until the dvd comes out)
I like the rocks you've got going on too, the whole thing looks great!
my lfs is getting more res's in next week so I might add one of those to this tank, since the map turtle is so skittish. The turtle I had when I was young was a slider and unlike this turtle he didn't care who looked at him

 

[ang7880]

hi wuvmybetta... thanks, Squirt seems to like his home well...I wish I could find him anoter small playmate... we've only seen Finding Nemo once so far... believe me...my husband has already asked if we could all go see it again... we can't wait 'til it comes out on dvd either. Best wishes if you decide to get a RES...
Also, Squirt was very skiddish when we first got him, at least for the 1st week or 2. He loves the attention now! His tank is at the end of our hallway... if he sees us walking toward him he'll swim up to the front of the tank and just look at us.

 

[kevin007]

yo ang, about the question u asked on ur other post, do i have my turtles now? the answer is yes i still have them and it's true, when u walk by or when they see u they will swim towards ur tank and just looks at u, i love it when he does that! and i am using a 10 gallon too but i heard that turtles can out grow it easily in like a year or so, so i guess i'll be buying a new tank soon!

 

[wuvmybetta]

Thanks for all of your help ang
I invested in an internal filtration system and that thing is awesome ! the penguin just wasn't doing the job and the new filter sucked up all the mess within minutes (which I was previously netting out a few times a day) but today was the 1st time that she wasn't jumpy, I think she likes the new filter,less splashy

kevin, it should take awhile for them to grow out of the 10 gallon but you can always put them outside in a kiddy swimming pool with a great filter system when they do get large, but that should be years from now
and to pass on some knowledge that I picked up while reading for many many hours , if your turtle ever gets stuck under a rock and drowns..hold it head down and pump it's little legs several times until it comes back, a turtles heart beats for hours after it dies . you can also use traditional cpr on them , who'd a thunk it...

 

[Jamnog]

Hi wuvmybetta...

I have a 10 gallon set up for our turtle... it's about 60-70% full with water. I have small river rocks in his tank.. no gravel, as they like to eat anything and everything... so I would remove that if I were you. My husband and I drove down to the river and got some large rocks to stack in the tank for a land/basking area. Right now, I'm just using a regular office lamp for a basking lamp...that's supposed to be fine for a while.. I'll be investing in a proper basking lamp soon. Here are some pics of our setup...Squirt. As for filters, we have a fully submersible pump, perfect for reptiles... We've got the MicroClean 316, made by Zoo Med...www.zoomed.com

Best wishes to you, your daughter and the turtle!

you have done everytthing perfectly right imo thing is tho you will need to clean the filter at least once every two weeks and when i say clean the filter i dont mean replace it or even to squigy it out in tank water or anything like that thease are red eared terrapin squigey it out under the tap they dont care a hoot about cycling the tank or nitrates they are the biggest waist producers on earth second to humans i think. just thaught i should point out to those who keep fish how different thease little terrors are to fish.

 

[wuvmybetta]

in my case with the map turtle, the cycling is very important since they're really sensitive to ammonia, seems like I'm in there doing partial changes every other day , especially after the guppy chow episode, I changed about 90% of the water that night and found a munched guppy under the rock , guess the water current swept it under there where the turtle (or "Flippy" as she's known to us) couldn't get it. I'm sure that was really great for the water quality

 

[Jamnog]

ahh so map turtles are different well i spose not all turtles will be the same. my red eared sliders didnt mind if the water was chlorinated even all the same and they lived just as well in cold water as in hot. like i said earlyer they live in the rivers of the uk and they breed and are an environmental threat.