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I just recently moved my red ear slider into a large kiddie pool outside. The air temperature is in the 60s. Is this too cold? There is some sun and some shade. I'm not sure how cold the water is. How deep should I make the water? I want to have a happy turtle, but there is so much I don't know!

thats prob a little too cold for them. they like around 76-81 degrees

yeah but somehow near my house thers a pond only at 60s but full of RES

Lilsaint wrote:yeah but somehow near my house thers a pond only at 60s but full of RES

They could have some sort of heater inside the water?

If they live in the wild they're probably habituated to colder temperatures. If you normally keep your indoors at 78 degrees then that's a pretty big temperature change!

Outlander wrote:If they live in the wild they're probably habituated to colder temperatures. If you normally keep your indoors at 78 degrees then that's a pretty big temperature change!

My thoughts exactly. I try to keep turtles the same all year. As not to freak them out or make them sick. This site is the only thing that REALLY as helped me with my turtles. On my own in the beigining I decided to do the best I can to give my babies a constant enviroment. Keeping them at no lower then 75 degrees.

I've read pretty much all the posts on every turtle subject on this site. I know how my turltes are. So I take all that info and apply it to my turtles in the best way I see fit.

Every turtle is different.

will turtles hibernate if the water is too cold but it's not winter? and i was wondering- how deep should the water be? i'm sure there is an answer to that somewhere, but i just thought i'd ask.

laughingsarah wrote:will turtles hibernate if the water is too cold but it's not winter? and i was wondering- how deep should the water be? i'm sure there is an answer to that somewhere, but i just thought i'd ask.

Give ur turt as much water to swim in as possible. Everything I've read says at least 10 gallons of water per inch of shell. And that's minimun. I've read that they may hibernate if they get too cold. I havn't experienced it tho.

How many gallons is the pool? Is 60F the peak temp during the day? How big/old is the turtle?

If your turtle was used to much warmer temp, assuming he's healthy, the temp drop would likely make him sluggish until he adapted to it. (You could have made the transition easier by slowly dropping the temp in the indoor tank).

As summer approaches and the temps rise, keeping the water temp down will be more of an issue than keeping the water warm.

Just as an added concern, it might be a bad idea to leave the turtles in the pool over night. Raccoons are very clever, are attracted to water, and they enjoy eating turtles. If the pool is really big and deep, it might be okay, but it makes my blood run cold to think of them trying to get away in a wading pool.