Hello,
I currently have 2 juvenile turtles, one a painted turtle and the other a RES. The painted turtle (Vic) is about 4 inches long, and the RES (Sam) is also about 4 inches long. They have been living together for a little over year now, and recently Vic has shown many signs of aggression towards Sam. This morning while Sam was swimming, Vic came up behind him and took some skin off of his hind leg, and partially broke one of his nails. Then, he attempted it again, but I prevented that from happening. I separated them into different containers after witnessing this, but this isn't the first time that something like this has happened. In the past, Vic has bitten Sam's tail and taken skin off, too. After the first tail bite we moved them from a 20 gallon tank into a 40 gallon, and although attacks have been less frequent in the bigger tank, the painted keeps biting the RES every so often. I cannot have a constant watch on them, since we are currently in an apartment and space is limited, so we have the tank on the balcony at the moment. They have both reached sexual maturity, but Vic is female and Sam is male. We currently have gravel and a Turtle Dock in the 40 gallon tank, and have filled it about a third of the way with water. Could Vic be trying to establish dominance? And if so, when will this end? And if it's not dominance, what else could it be? Am I not feeding them enough, or is the water quality poor? I'm desperate for help, because I want to keep them healthy, and I don't want to be forced to give either of them away.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.