General Care Discussion :: pet co markting death traps

[fish21]

the product below is about 1 gallon and pet co is marckting it as a great place for babby turts. it hurts me to think that people who dont know any better would buy this for their babby turt. (e.x) when i bought my first R.E.S my wife said those things die easy. i asked her how she know this and she said. when she was a kid she a 2 babby res about 1 inch and the pet store said that all they needed was a small bowl and a rock in the middle to get out of the water and thats IT. she said they died in under a month. to her defense her and her parents just didnt know any better. it is sad to think how those poor things suffered. so when i see something like this marketed on a web site like pet co and petsmart it makes me fuerious. just thought i would shed some light on this subject.


there is a link on the page for this product for this product where you can write a review. i recomend that if you dont want to see any babby turts killed by one of these you go to the link below and write the truth about this product.

https://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx ... yID=12466&



Lee's Deluxe Amphibian Lagoon
Roomy plastic habitat with self-locking lid, built-in ramp with lounging area, and decorative plant is the ideal home for amphibious creatures such as small turtles, newts, frogs, salamanders, and hermit crabs.
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1 of 3 (33%) of customers said they would purchase this product again.

Overall:
2.3 of 5
Pet Satisfaction
2 of 5
Appearance
2.7 of 5
Quality
3 of 5
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Product Reviews

[DanielRES1180]

You're right, that thing is just plain torture for the animals in it. Although it says all these sweet little things about maintenance and access and the accesories, 11'' in diameter is too darn small for the poor things in it. I tried to send feedback to the site but I didn't find where to do that.
Did you inform your wife that RES need more than a tub filled halfway with water with a rock in it? But you can't blame her really, because it is the pet store. The guy knows what he is doing, right?
This kind of remembers me of a site that tells us what to do with bad pet stores.
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Articles/editorial-badpetstores.htm
In closing, we have to inform that site that the tub is not the right size for the critters in it.

[daredevilgirl013]

I know Petland where I live sells those things. And when I bought my turtle he stayed in it for a while before I got everything ready for his new home but I think he stayed in it for only a week if that. But this other ma and pa pet store I go to doesn't sell those. They don't like them.

[echopulse]

I wouldn't say that they are a trap. I know people who have had their turtles in Lee's Lagoons for almost a year, and their turtles are still active and healthy. I encourage my customers to upgrade in about 6 months, and hopefully most of them do, but don't say the people working a petstores don't know what they are talking about. I always give my customers a care sheet with much of the same info as you can find on this site.

[fish21]

then you are one of the good pet stor workers. but anyone who has owned reptiles has met the ( extremely kowledgeable sale person) who later after doing your reasearch find out is full of s%$t. i am sorry if in any way i have offended you, and it is not like you have to have a formal education to work at a pet store. not to discredit you who seems to care a lot about turtles. everyone on this site will agree that a turt needs 10 gallons per inch. so a one inch turt needs 10 gallons. and this encloser is not big enugh for a new hatchling. maby for a temporary (extremely temporary e.x the ride home from the pet store. my store gives you a much biger container for the ride home.). but i just cant do that to a living thing. that is like saying a puppy will be fine in a small cardboard box it is pleanty big enugh. it can stand up and kind of move in it, wich we all know is not the case and is crule. well in cloasing i feal that this cage is in fact a death trap for a turtle, and i dont think i am alone( read the two posts above.) and to keep a turtle in one of these things is not only wrong it is torture. i guess we are all not wired the same but i love my critters to much to do that to them.

thaks for your thought

fish

[steve]

These lagoons are targeted to new and inexperienced beginners. It is marketed as an effective and inexpensive means for turtle and pet care, which is why people sell them. No qualified veterinarian would recommend it, though I'm sure places that sell them will tell you how great it is.

[cam722]

Why would a person buy a turtle and then keep it in inadequate housing? I mean that's like putting a Rotweiller in a one room apartment with no place to run around and exercise. Will it survive, perhaps but it won't be as healthy as one that is taken care of properly.

As for the "don't say people in pet stores don't know what they are taking about".. about 90% of the time, the information people are given regarding the care of an RES is WRONG. Telling a person buying a turtle that will grow to be between 9-12" that a 10 gallon tank will house it for it's entire life is seriously incorrect. Telling them to feed them only protein rich foods is also incorrect as in the wild they rarely get protein and are more herbivores. Perhaps you give out correct information, but that is extremely rare. I'm sure those people who sell turtles in Chinatown think their information is correct too, but we all know it isn't.

[fish21]

thanks for the souport all

fish

[DanielRES1180]

Like cam722 said, most of the information given is wrong. When I was naive to proper turtle care I thought what I now call a death bowl was proper housing to a turtle, it was "roomy" for all three turtles at the time. Good thing my mom suggested upgrading to a 20 gallon tank (all we can afford to date), or else the turtles would more or less probably have died. At the time she suggested that we upgrade I thought "why should we, the bowl is roomy enough", seriously. Several months later I was going through Austins's Turtle Page, at the time named RES Oasis, that I found out the basic formula for turtle care- 10gal per 1", and it flashed back to me the guy that sold me the first turtle when he said, "Alls you need to do is feed the turtle two Baby Reptomin sticks a day and change the water in the bowl a week, and put it in the sun a couple of hours a week." At least he was right on the last one, but that is one-third, 33%, rock-bottom F. At that instant it turned my stomach, feeling remorse for all the long weeks that the turtles were tortured in the bowl.
Since people in general feel more pity if they see a cute and furry animal being housed improperly than if they see the same thing going on with reptiles, I'll use the dog example yet again. To those dog owners, how would you feel if you saw a dog out in the rain with only a small box to live in, rain leaking through every nuck and cranny? Angry right. The same emotions take hold of us turtle owners when we see the death bowls waiting to be sold with baby turtles already in them, the 25 hatchlings in the 10 gallon tank at the pet store, the three adult RES in the 20 gallon tank beside the hatchlings, only swimming in 3 inches of water.
That's why it angered me as much as the next person to see this item sold by a pet store, especially a well-known pet store, known for the "Where the pets go" or similar slogan (I think it's either petsmart or petco). Either way, in closing that tub was just plain out wrong, sorry if it offended you that I made a fuss over it.

[echopulse]

Our care sheet says right on it, These enclosures are not reccomended as permanent housing, you should upgrade to at least a 10 gallon aquarium after 6 months.

[fish21]

you would keep a babby in there for 6 months?

fish

[cam722]

Our care sheet says right on it, These enclosures are not reccomended as permanent housing, you should upgrade to at least a 10 gallon aquarium after 6 months.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but no one on this forum is going to back you up on this. There is NO amount of time that those sort of things are good for a turtle. They may be ok for holding them while you take them to the vet, or put them in while you're cleaning their tank but not for permanent housing for any length of time.

If you follow the 1" to 10 gallons.. a hatchling is too large for one of those containers.

[fishandcandy]

Many people feel that even a 10 gallon is inadequate for a hatchling. It's not all about space for the turtles (although that is important), water quality is a serious issue with such small tanks.

[da sAUCE!]

no one listen to echopulse. his ego is too large for him to bare the weight of therefore his info is worth beans.

[RESCHIU]

is that the one with little lagoon in the center with a tiny stairs that goes up? personally I still don't quite understand why it's being called "death bowl" when I first got my turtle about 4 years ago, I started with that lagoon too, and my turtle seems to be very happy in there(he diggs rocks and walk around very actively), I kept him there untill he was almost bigger than the walkway(maybe for couple of months?), then I upgrade it into a bigger environment. Not that I am trying to say that lagoon is safe or anything, now that I learn more about turtle from this website, I give my turtle a better environment, but I didn't know about the importance of the environment back then, but my turtle is still fine and happy right now and that's what matters