General Care Discussion :: turtles in the dark questions

[rfjedi]

Well I inherited these 3 turtles and clearly they have been in the light most of their entire life based on behavior. Should I do anything about it if I have 3 turtles. When the light is on they play fine dont bite and do their dance. In the dark however and ONLY in when I turn off the lights the big one freaks out. It goes on a biting rampage chasing the other 2 around the tank. They are pretty close to same size this one is just slightly larger. Can anyone explain this bizaar behavior which only occurs in darkness.

[TerrapinStation]

I'm not a turtle specialist, but I play one on TV (not really), so here goes. My RES are still small and mostly get along light or dark, but if one was attacking the others, I'd think about separating the aggressive one, at the very least during a period of adjustment, maybe permanently. That seems to be the word on multiple turtles in a tank around these parts - that being they eventually need to get separated.

Why did the past owner let them go? How big are the turtles, how big is the tank? My turts pretty much sleep at night insofar as I can tell (I sleep then too). But a goldfish did disappear one night without a trace.