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ive been witnessing this type of behavior often between my two sliders. what they do is approach each other head on and vibrate their paws towards each other really fast. i highly doubt its an act of aggression since they dont seem to be hating on each other while theyre doing it. does anyone else have turtles that do this?

There are many many posts in the forum on this subject. You may wish to search for them and see what others have experienced. You may try looking under dance as this is usually called "the mating dance".

i tried that already. thats why i posted this.

mating dance?! well at least i know now that one of them is definitely female instead of assuming it. i wonder which one it is....

the plot thickens!

How big are they? If it is a mating issue, a male will flutter his paws to a female. If they are still small, I wouldn't rule out a territorial issue. How big is the tank?

theyre still babies, but the other one seems to have grown so much more faster (its shell measures 2.5 inches, while the smaller turtle's shell measures 1.5).

the tank is 20 gallons with 2/3 of it filled with water.

You should definitely start feeding them separately. Another good reason for a separate feeding container.

The problem does sounds like a territorial issue to me. Hopefully aggression won't be another problem.

i was also thinking about taking the bigger res out while the small one eats, and when its done, i would put it back in the tank.

thanks for the suggestion, steve.

The fluttering isn't necessarily done by the male sex. Females can do it to each other as well, males can do it to males. It is, as was noted, likely due to territory, or a dominance issue.