General Care Discussion :: Vet said gravel is good for them...?

[marria*]

I went into the vet thats near my house just to see if i could bring my turtles into there if i ever needed to and i asked a few questions. When i mentioned that i had just taken out all the gravel in my tank (thanks to everyone on here informing me about the dangers, thank you guys ) he said that gravel is good for their digestion?.. so i was kinda confused, he said that its good to break down stuff in their digestion then they just throw it up.. :S has anyone heard anyone said stuff like that?

Im asking here because he also sounded like he had no clue what he was talking about for other things. He said that if my turtle was ever sick or having a problem there was nothing i could do but wait for him to get better or die... so i dont know what was up with him...

[Sir Max]

WHAAAATTT? LOL

Is he fu**** dumb?

[tidaboy9]

Well is sort of is......

It's good for any aquarium set up!!

But the whole ideology of it being eaten by the turtles poses another threat!

Mostly anyone pet store or vet guy would say that but u must consider other forms of Substrate like sand or BIG smooth gravel rocks!


PLEASE anyone correct me if im wrong !!!!

[marria*]

yea after reading everyones threads here i took out all my gravel, right now it hasn lots of plants all over the bottom because one of my turtles, tuck, likes to sleep in the plants. But he made me kinda reconsider a bit but i want to see what everyone else says first.

[Moose]

see thats why i would only go to an HERP Vet bcuz regular vets would rather tell you wrong information than to admit that they dnt know...

[marria*]

Lol that's the reason I went there in the first place to see if they had one or knew where closest one was.

[coreyvht]

crocagaders eat rocks

[marisa]

In the wild they have been known to ingest small pebbles, and it is thought that this aids in digestion. However, for a turtle held captive in a tank with no real place to go and not much to do, it's better not to have gravel on the bottom. Too tempting to try to eat and there is the chance of impaction.

[bigG]

Ditto. I never had any gravel but I've had some rocks larger than the RES' mouth. However, I have removed any substrate to allow for easier cleaning and my female does an excellent job of keeping the bottom practically "spotless."

[imderanged]

In my experience, and I have worked with vets as a tech, Regular "dog and cat" vets know surprisingly little about exotics, but often don't mind try to treat your pet as 'practice' as if your little guy was a science experiment. It sounds bad I know, but the one vet I worked for hardly ever saw exotics, but would take on cases that sounded like they might be 'interesting'. The best thing is to find a Herp vet who SPECIALIZES and really cares for reptiles.