General Care Discussion :: Water temperature

[holidae]

My water stays about 76.5 degrees. I was curious, would it make sense to have the water cool down at night to simulate that of the wild? My place stays about 62-72 degrees all the time. I could get another heater on a timer to make sure at night a proper temp is maintained, or does keeping the water at a static temp just fine?

[emma]

I keep mine at 78 degrees, which is what you are supposed to have it on with hatchlings and 76 with adults. I would think that 62-72 might be to cold, since out in the wild, the water always stays pretty warm and night because of the heat the water has taken in.
Maybe someone else has a different method with the water temp. other than me.

[grey goose]

Its best to keep the water temp in a steady range. In the winter my water temps will go up to 77F during the day (when the basking light is on) and drop to about 75.5 over night. Simulating the wild is not always a good idea with a captive turt.

[megcornell]

Captive turtles do not hibernate like they would in the wild. If you let the water get that cool it will be too much for their system. In the wild, the water cools and warms much more gradually than a daily cycle. You should keep it at 76 all the time.

[holidae]

Thanks for the info!

[marisa]

The temp for my RES drops overnight several degrees when the lights go off, and I don't think it hurts him. I do think it's more natural. Water temps in the 60's would be a bit too cool, but if your turtle is an adult and healthy, he could easily live with a water temp in the low 70's (my RES's water temp is usually 70 - 72F and he's fine with it). If the water temp you gave is without a heater and the temp drops into the 60's at night, I'd get a water heater that has an auto on-off when the temp reaches a certain level, and set it for around 73F so it goes on when the water temp reaches that point so the water doesn't get too cool.

[mikee]

Folks - We all have dropped the temperature on our turtles at one time or another, for what ever reason. But, the fact is, they do better between 77 and 80 degrees. They metabolize their food better, poop better and can resist disease better. That is a fact. What is very hard on turtles in hot, cold, hot, cold? That happens when you take your little turt out to look at it and then put him back in whe warm water. That happens usually whet the critters are little and we want to take them out and look at them. They have a small body mass and cool off very quickly when the water evaporates off their bodies. This kind of behavior can cause RI and other respiratory diseases.

[scripta_elegans]

Turtlles in the wild, for the most part, live in much larger volumes of water than they do in captivity. because the volume of the water is so much greater, the temperture doesn't fluctuate by more than a degree or 2 over night, less in very big bodies of water. The temps do change, but it takes a sustained drop in air temperature to cool the water by more than a few degrees. In reality, we are mimicking nature better by keeping the water temps fairly constant. The air temps drop over night, but that also imitates nature.

[SpotsMama]

I think a healthy adult turtle does best with temperatures below 75 degrees. Most turtles need a significant differential in temperature between water and basking platform to get up and bask. It's hard to achieve the necessary differential when the water temp is too warm. When my turtle's water temp is around 72 degrees and his basking temp is in the low 90's, he'll bask for hours every day. When the water temp is over 75, he loses interest in basking. He needs a lot of basking time for UVB.

Also, the warm basking temperature aides his digestion.

When water temperature is higher, then skin shedding increases noticeably. The higher it gets, the faster the skin sheds.

When Spot lived outside in his pond last summer, I measured the temperature regularly as it was the first time for him in the pond and Texas summers are awfully hot. The pond is about 500 gallons, about 1/2 the water is below ground level, and it gets more shade than sun. The water temp stayed pretty stable and during the hottest weather ranged between 78 and 82 degrees. Spot seemed to thrive out there except that he did not bask as well as he does inside under his t rex. He basked maybe an hour a day. Towards the end of the summer he developed some small infections on his plastron which may have been due to injuries from too hard a basking platform surface or may have been shell rot from not drying out enough, or both. It was also unusually rainy last summer which added to the problem of his not drying off enough. At any rate, when he's inside in his aquarium and the water temp is cooler he does bask a lot more than he did outside where the water was warm.

[grey goose]

In the summer, my girls love it when the tank water is warmer, it's like they are soaking in a hot tub, all stretched out. But they don't bask as much.
In the winter it's much easier to keep the tank temps stable. I keep the water at 76F, and basking at 90F.

[sarah85]

I keep mine at about 78 degrees, if the water is 2 cold they wont want 2 eat, and it could also cause death, i was reading in a RES book that said it needed 2 be about 78 degrees because if its not they wont be able 2 simulate hungry and allow for effective function of the immune system. If kept 2 cold 4 prolonged periods it can cause respiratory infections.