Ok. I'm officially a believer in the no-gravel for turtles. When I got my little turtle it was being kept in one of those large bowl things with small multi-colored gravel. I ended up using gravel they gave me when I first got home... I picked aqua colored gravel. However, after about a week I removed it (more from it being difficult to clean than actual safety concerns, to be honest). Anyways, it's been a few months now and the other day I found a little purple pepple in the bottom of the tank. It is veeery tiny, but a small pebble nonetheless. Anyways, the point being that I myself NEVER used purple gravel and it's been several months. That was stuck in him all this time! I actually did kind of wonder if I would ever see any because he had been kept in gravel, but I assumed he'd been too small to eat the gravel. Wrong, there is always a pebble small enough especially in the smaller sized gravel. So that's just my thoughts. Hopefully that's it and he won't ever get sick from anymore that might be in there.
Make sure you remove the gravel that is coming back out. I was also thinking that maybe it could be gravel from before you had him. I don't know for sure, but if you sorted the gravel out, then it is the only thing that made sense to me. At least he is passing it. Does he still have a healthy appetite?
The only gravel I ever used with him was aqua... the thing he was in with the other turtles was multicolored gravel... so that had to be where it came from. I forgot to remove the piece of gravel... here's hoping it's still there!
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:45 am Seriously, don't use gravel