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Hi!
A couple of weeks ago our 13y.o. river cooter Chili started displaying some weird behavior. Now and then, as soon as no one is paying attention to him, he will slowly spin around in circles at the bottom of his tank, occasionally fluttering his claws as well. I've read that spinning in circles can be a sign of many things, including serious illness, and of course, I start to worry. But as he acts completely normal the rest of the time, we were wondering if this perhaps was some kind of territorial behavior or a way of showing off? Yesterday it looked like he tried to mate with a log.

He recently moved from a way too small temporary setup (his original tank started to leak, so we had to get a new one, that took a while) to a new 300L tank with a basking spot on top of it. The water is filtered through a 1200l/h external filter and the temperature lies around 25C.

Can anyone help?

Thank you in advance
-Anniken

A slow spin makes me think he might just be bored. Does he have areas to hide in the tank?

steve wrote:A slow spin makes me think he might just be bored. Does he have areas to hide in the tank?

That's what I hope as well. He does have a few logs that provide a decent hide, but perhaps he needs more of them to choose from?

Do you have any other tips on how to engage him in activities to keep him entertained? We've tried fish, but he only shows interest in a couple of minutes and then goes back to his usual behavior (moving roots and basking).

Maybe some fake plants, but it is hard to keep them interested in something they can't destroy.