Turtles

[spAcE mOnkEy]

OK, is there anyone here that knows how to keep a turtle properly? I have been wanting to get a turtle, but then when i started researching them, i realized how big of tanks they needed. Then i look here and theres people keeping the same turltes i wanted in tanks that are not nearly the size of what was recomended. I went on forums for turtles, and they said that one "red ear slider" would need around 100 gallons for just one turtle! Now this is probably the tank size they need, but on this forum I see people keeping that turtle and many other types in tanks pretty small. Turtles are very messy, and need alot of fitlration. They probably shouldnt even be kept with other fish because of the amount of crap they produce. Is there anyone on this forum that knows alot about turltes?

 

[SHELL]

there is a good forum that iused a lot, turtleforum.com very informative and also www.austinesturtlepage.com is also good

Hope this helps

Shell

 

[SirMinion]

What people seem to forget about most turtles, terrapins, sliders & cooters, including red-ears is that they get big, and they get aggresive and that they are carnivores.
And if fed correctly, they grow fast
They can also live for more than thirty years.

Sure they're cute when bought on impulse at two inches long, but in no time at all that cute little critter will become a long-lived foot-long preditory monster.

In the wild, red-ears will swim underwater up to a large wading bird, grab it's legs and pull it under to rip it to pieces. They will take chunks from any large fish unwary enough to get in range, and they will bite smaller fish in half.
With a 99% meat diet, they produce huge amounts of stinking poop with a high protien content that quickly becomes a bacteria factory including harmfull strains like salmonella which all species carry in their gut.

Although aquatic, red-ears and most other freshwater turtles must be able to climb onto land to bask under a reptile bulb. Faliure to provide this will result in vitamin deficiencies that cause soft shells, deformed bones, blindness and a very painful death.
These are land animals that feed underwater, not aquatic animals that visit the land.
In other species, the amount of time spent in the water varies.
There are a couple of truly aquatic freshwater turtles, such as the 'fly river turtle'

All these things are reasons that most freshwater turtle species must not be kept in aquariums with fish.

 

[spAcE mOnkEy]

OK, thanks Sirminion for covering that. I really dont think a lot of people on this forum know what they are doing when they are keeping turtles.

 

[Sean_Buckley]

SirMinion, I will have to disagree with you about the keeping fish with them thing, due to my experience anyway. Please note that this is not encouraging anyone to do this, my turtles are probably just weird, lol, but I keep a few Convict Cichlids in with my turtles. The turtles never bother them, and when the Cons breed and the turtles get too close to their fry, the Cons actually chase them away, and when the fry are too old to be cared for by their parents anymore, they treat the turtles like a "host rock" I guess you would call it. They hang around near them, and eat the food particles that come out of the turtles mouth, the turtles have no problem with it.
Sean

 

[SirMinion]

SirMinion, I will have to disagree with you about the keeping fish with them thing, due to my experience anyway. Please note that this is not encouraging anyone to do this, my turtles are probably just weird, lol, but I keep a few Convict Cichlids in with my turtles. The turtles never bother them, and when the Cons breed and the turtles get too close to their fry, the Cons actually chase them away, and when the fry are too old to be cared for by their parents anymore, they treat the turtles like a "host rock" I guess you would call it. They hang around near them, and eat the food particles that come out of the turtles mouth, the turtles have no problem with it.
Sean

What species of turtle and how big are they?

*interested*

 

[MegTheFish]

Wouldn't the turtle poop kill the fish? And wouldn't the turtle polute the water too much for the fish to be able to live? Just questions.

With a 99% meat diet, they produce huge amounts of stinking poop with a high protien content that quickly becomes a bacteria factory including harmfull strains like salmonella which all species carry in their gut.

 

[Dwarfs]

If the tank is very well maintained, or the turtles are just very small, the water shouldn't become polluted too quickly

 

[Sean_Buckley]

They are 2 Red-Eared Sliders, about 7" each, in a 45 gallon tank. And no, the turtles honestly don't seem to poop that lot, compared to the amount they eat. I've had them for about probably 8 years, when I got them, they were the size of a loonie or quarter (sorry, SirMinion, I'm not sure what size of change that would be in the UK).
Sean

 

[Auratus]

If these red ears are 99% meat eaters, how do they get enough calcium in their diet? I see a ton of turtles at work with metabolic bone disease because people feed them nothing but goldfish and mealworms and think thats okay. A big part of it is also improper lighting and they have probably never seen the light of day but they do need some proportion of their diet to be dark leafy greens as a source of calcium. Or at least some vitamin supplement, even though I don't think those really work all that well. The meaty diet has barely any calcium. It's all protein like Sirminion said. Maybe in the wild when they are eating the whole body of an animal they would get more calcium from certain parts, but that would be pretty hard to duplicate in captivity.

Do you guys think that a turtle can really do well in a tank it's whole life? Especially a 45 or 50 gallon and never getting any natural sunlight? Just my opinion, but the only way a turtle is going to get what it needs is to be outside in the sunshine where it belongs. 12 hours of a UV bulb on a reptile (even the best uv bulb) only equals out to about an hour of natural sunlight. You really need an outdoor pond. I see too many people keeping sliders in 5 or 10 gallon aquariums with no lighting with goldfish. It's really sad.

 

[Sean_Buckley]

I guess I didn't mention that I have a small outdoor pond which I keep the turtles in during the summer when its warm enough...but they don't seem to like it, they're always crawling around the enclosure, seemingly trying to escape...
Sean