General Care Discussion :: weird behavior?

[turts808]

i just cleaned and re-arranged my RES's tank and i notice that he is acting differently. he keeps scratching at the sides of the tank, as if he wants to come out.
heres a little background...im taking over care of "turts" from my girlfriends younger sister, and ive been feeding him every day, and he now comes to the glass when he sees me, and i take him out of the tank and take him for leisure time in the clean yard, and ever since then it seems like he never wants in the tank...i dunno...any ideas? am i doing somethign wrong?

[SpotsMama]

That scratching at the sides of the tank is very common. He's begging for food. He's got your number - you're the one that feeds him and lets him crawl around in the yard, so he's happy to see you. It's a normal, healthy thing.

[megcornell]

I wish I had "leisure time" outside in Hawaii... what a lucky turtle!
It sounds to me like he's just begging for food as well. Just be careful not to overfeed him, they can act like they are always starving

[turts808]

ok, thanks for the good input guys!!

oh, and i made a nice rockhill in the water which leads up to where he basks, is it common for him to demolish it? lol, he completely messed up his rock hill so its harder for him to get onto his basking area...

[DocShay]

Ah turtles are always "renovating". Quite normal for them to push everything around.

[SpotsMama]

Oh yes, it's completely common for turtles to mess up your good plans for their home - it's called "redecorating". My turtle has pushed almost all his decorations to one end of his tank. It's not the way I would do it but he's happy and it's his tank.

On a pile of rocks, here are some things to think about. First, there's a safety issue with a pile of rocks. A couple of turtles on here recently have been killed when a rock pile or tower has shifted and they've been pinned and have drowned. As you said, they like to push things around and are very strong, so even if you think the pile is secure, they may be able to dislodge it.

Second is a space issue. You want to maximize the space for swimming and a pile of rocks takes up a lot of space. The best basking areas are those that are suspended from the wall of the tank or attached to it so that the space underneath the basking area is available for swimming. A great design is a custom made above tank basking area. Zoo Med makes a nice inexpensive floating turtle dock - it comes in three sizes. Lot's of people on here use it. If for some reason it's not suitable, there are a couple of other designs to choose from. But if I were you I'd lose that rock pile.

One more thing in the negative column where rock piles are concerned is cleanliness. "Stuff" gets caught in the cracks between rocks and is hard to clean and gets pretty gross. Much easier to keep it clean without the rock pile.

[turts808]

thanks guys for the tips!! ill look into the zoo med kit, but i was thinking about making the above tank basking area for him too. we'll see! thanks again for all the help!