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my son just gave me to RES..i don't know how much water to put in the tank..i have been told up to 4 inches and then i have been told i can fill the entire tank as long as they have a place to get out of the water..also don't know what kind of stuff to add to the water because of the chlorine. can anyone please help me...

Welcome to Turtle Talk

A good place to start is at the main Redear Slider site of which this forum is just a part.

http://www.redearslider.com/

You can fill up the tank up but you want to make sure they can't escape. Yes, they need a basking area so that they can get out of the water and dry off (this prevents shell rot). You also need a filter/heater/uvb and uva light source. The tank should be 10 gallons for each inch of turtle shell. As for what brand of decholorinator to use, someone else will have to help with that as I have well water and don't need it.

Again, welcome and keep us updated on how things are going.. Oh and pictures are nice to share too .. we LOVE pictures

About 3/4 of the tank should be filled with water, but also make sure it's impossible to escape

Carol, such pretty turts

Thanks TurtleSirens.. got a new basking area as the other one just wasn't working out.. and they absolutely love it. They didn't even freak when I got that close to get the pic.. which was truly amazing.

Welcome piglet, the best advice I can give like Carol said above is to read. Learn all you can about your RES and they will live happy, long lives. Let us know if we can help you more.

cam722 wrote:Thanks TurtleSirens.. got a new basking area as the other one just wasn't working out.. and they absolutely love it. They didn't even freak when I got that close to get the pic.. which was truly amazing.

lol yep, the more confortable the dock is, I think they are more confortable with you. Mine just stares at me when I come near, face to face. It's really cool

Just curious, it does look like the edge of the tank is fairly close to the dock, or is the pic decieving?

The tank is in a corner.. up against the wall. No way for them to escape unless they are tightrope walkers and can walk along the tiny edge of the tank

here are some pictures..

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dazee722/album?.dir=/c2a6

Ah, I see now
Love the legs also, all the stretching

hey thanks for the info....now i can make them happy...i noticed everyone tells there RES names on here...mine are meathead (female) and nubby (male)...when my son got them the male had one back leg that the foot part is missing..but he gets around great...thanks again...

is there a place on the internet to buy floating docks and what exactly are they..i live in a real small town and have to drive 34 miles to the nearest pet store and they don't have anything for turtles...

There are a number of sites that sell turtle docks on the internet. This seems to be the least expensive...

http://www.reptiledirect.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=733

I'm not sure if this is the type you want, but it is the one that is most used or so it seems to me

If you use google, you can pretty much just type in what you are looking for and you'll come up with a list of sites. That's how I do my comparison shopping. If you need any further help, just let us know

I need to change my dock I did a tank change a while back and just couldn't get it to adjust right. I need to *think think* I don't know yet, I'll come up with something. I am so picky too it has to be perfect. I want a new tank too, it's just not big enough (to me)!

I change my dock every 12 months. Should I change it more often or am I just wasting money?

My turts are only a year old and I've gone thru several docks. First because they outgrew the small one, then the large ones fell apart after a while or got so infested with algae that I could no longer stand it.

I've used the zoo-med docks for the past year. I had also made my own, but that didn't work out as well as expected. I recently got a new turtle dock/ramp.. and the turtles absolutely LOVE it.

This is the one I bought... it's easy to clean... and the ramp extends quite a ways down into the water so even if the water level changes it's still easy for them to use...

http://www.herpsupplies.com/product.cfm?id=SOA64226

It's a bit on the costly side, but I figure its going to last them quite awhile. You can also find colored ones on ebay.. not sure on their prices.