General Care Discussion :: Turtles trying to bite each other!

[jpit008]

I had 2 baby res David and Jose. Jose passed away so I replaced him with Johan a week later. David looks to be about 2 1/2 inches and Johan about 2 inches in size but his shell is a lighter color. They seem to be good together always hanging around each other, but I noticed every now and then they try to bite each others heads. Why is this? Also how long should I keep them in the dark for each day/night?

[SpotsMama]

What adorable little turtles!

The biting can rapidly escalate into more serious biting that causes damage. Your turtles are pretty young to be behaving like that but it happens sometimes. Usually turtles get along when they are small but when they grow up they get aggressive with one another and have to be separated. Sometimes they continue to cohabit peacefully but usually not.

You should prepare to separate them on short notice if you see that the biting is getting serious. Sorry - not trying to be negative but there have been man instances on here of turtles that start biting and injure one another.

On light and dark, try to mimic the natural day/night cycle. Approximately 12 hours of light/12 hours of light would work most of the time.

[TheComputerGremlin]

Yeah, you need to have a tank ready and waiting. What size is your tank? With two turtles that size, you should have at least 40 gallons, if not more. If you increase your tank size, some of the aggression should hopefully go away, but it's not guaranteed.

[mackadocious]

i had to separate my two girls last fall after they got moved into a much roomier home (from 50 gallon to 130 gallon).....so aggression didn't become evident till after getting more space....thankfully i still had the old tank...and these two had shared the same small space for 4 years....i am still hoping to try to put them back in the same tank maybe later this spring as i have a feeling that some of the aggression was spawned by a healing leg wound that had been present for a while and once they were able to swim in bigger spaces hank smelled fresh blood??.....just cause i kept catching her biting at that wound specifically and she later caused a butt wound on the same leg when she missed the one on the leg......and i know she didn't cause the original wound, that came from a tank escape....anyway, the leg's healed and the butt is no longer open and re-pigmentation has begun and this is now over 6 months later....point being, if damage is done, reptiles take a long time to heal......if hank continues to be aggressive toward patsy, sans wounds, i'll probably give her away....maintaining two set ups is a pain.