Photo Gallery :: Toku basking

[slider_keeper]

Hi! Wow sorry I haven't been around the forums in a while. I spent the summer in Washington state on an internship so I was away from home for the summer. Toku is doing great and his tank is working flawlessly. I took a couple pics this week and today of him basking. He lets me walk right up and take a close up pic now. He also will let me look at him from up close while he basks. He is in the middle of a shed. He is now 6 yrs old. He is just shy of 6 in. and healthy as can be. The mega-ray and daylight lamps are working wonderfully. As you can see in the pics his tank is lit up like a North American pond in July. I added duckweed to his tank today we will see if the koi or he eats it all before it gets established in the tank. I got it for free so no biggy if he eats it. Anyways here are the pics;





Hope you enjoyed them:)

[steve]

Looks good man. He's big too, I think I see a spot of melanism too. Glad to hear all is well!

[slider_keeper]

Once the shed is complete his shell will have those defined lines and colors but he does have black (melanism) coming in on the ears. The plastron is what gets me with horse shoes, donuts, and angel wings.

[steve]

That sounds pretty cool, my male's plastron is almost all black.

[slider_keeper]

Once his shed is complete I'll take a pic of it and post it.

[Protracturtle]

Nice! Really digging the log you're using, I may try that out myself if I find one.

Another funny behaviour turtles tend to do is stick their legs out and pointed under the light during basking. They're likely drying their limbs. I know my turtles do that!

[slider_keeper]

Actually, turtles will stretch both their front and rear limbs and neck out to absorb the UVB for calcium D3 conversion. There is a thought that turtles can't absorb UVB through their shells. But I love it when they do the superman pose:)

[steve]

My RES will do that, though they are just basking under a halogen lamp. I do agree, recent research suggests that they absorb UVB through their skin, which makes a lot more sense to me.