Habitat - Indoor :: small gravel

[NikkiD]

When I received my new turtles, the tank they had been living in for the past year had gravel. The gravel is still in there, and they like to dig. They seem happy with it, unfortunately, I caught the big one with a piece of gravel in his mouth this morning. I am in the process now of taking it out, since I don't won't them to hurt themselves. But they just don't seem happy. They've had thegravel for about a year and haven't had a problem. Am I being to nervous and worried, or should I let them be mad at me and gat use to the bare bottom?

[cam722]

They don't need a bare bottom, but whatever you put in there needs to be larger than their heads. So, it's best to remove the gravel and you can put larger rocks in there.. river rocks work wonderfully. You also don't have to have the entire bottom covered. Every time I clean my tank, more and more rocks come out But they love to push them around and scrounge for leftovers .. so I'll always have some in there

[NikkiD]

I finished taking out all the gravel and left in the stones bigger than their head, there are about 20-30 of them. I also replaced all of the water, since the pebbles were hiding so much grossness. It looks so much better, but I can't help but think they miss their pebbles.
But at least they'll be healthy, and they'll get over the pebbles sooner or later, right?

[cam722]

I'm sure they won't have much of a problem adjusting to the gravel not being there.. They still have rocks to play with.

[marisa]

The amount of larger pebbles (20-30) sounds fine. They'll give your turts something to push around and will make cleaning easier for you. (Get bigger rocks when your turtles get larger.)