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What's the most difficult part of being a turtle mommy or daddy?

Is it the feeding? Buying the equipment? Deciding what to put in the tank? Worrying about health issues? Afraid of them escaping? Cleaning the tank? Changing the water? Something else?

For me, it's not giving into the begging. Turtles are little beggars and would eat themselves to death if I let them. When it isn't feeding time and they come to the tank sticking their heads out of the water, I just want to drop one or two more pellets in, but know that I shouldn't. I'll admit, sometimes I give in <.< >.> Regulating their diet is more of an exercise in self-controlling your heart than putting a certain amount of food in their tank.

-Spike

Spike, I agree with you. My RES Charlotte will eat anything and is constantly begging everytime she sees me - I will admit, I do give in sometimes though

I think the hardest part of being a turtle mummy is worrying about health issues. When I was a girl, my father kept painted turtles (which I named Wendy and Willy), but I had never owned a RES or a hatchling before. When I got Charlotte from the pet store she had an RI. I tried to get an appointment with a herp vet but it was over the holidays and nothing was open. Thanks to this site and the great advice I recieved, she was able to get better so when she saw the vet she wasen't even sick anymore I'm happy to report now that she's happy and healthy and has quite the personality!

I'm always worried though that she'll get sick again...

For me it's cleaning the filters. FX5 is a beast. I cleaned Ralph's today. Even though it wasn't that dirty, it still took about an hour. On the plus side, I can do a water change in 10 mins or less (takes longer to fill up than it does to drain).

Cleaning goes for me too...

WINTER, winter is the worst part about being a turtle owner.

My turtles have to come inside and it just ruins everything. Then i have to clean couple tanks....Had to buy couple filters etc.

sorry - double post. Woops.

double / triple post - and I can't figure out how to delete. Sorry for that. (maybe a mod will delete?)

For me, it's feeding.

I'm still learning everything about how to care for the turtle we bought my son at a pet store (the pet store lied about turtles needs and sent us home with a 20 long critter cage and a little zoo med filter – said it could house an adult) AND the two turtles my wife "rescued" from somebody who had no clue. (much worse conditions - for 5 years)

I quickly realized I had better become an expert and quick, and of course found out how wrong our two set ups were. So I've had a lot to do.

Upgrading tanks has been pretty easy and fun - figure out the biggest tank we can handle and shop craigslist. Filters - same. Figure out the biggest best filter I can handle, and I prefer to buy filters new, so figure out what’s good and get it.

Cleaning was a bit of a pain with old the smaller tanks - they got nasty and had to be completely changed every week or two. But really I don't mind it - as long as I have enough time in the day to do it.

Feeding has been a bit of a mystery. I've done my homework and I'm trying to feed right. Sometimes lately I have had trouble keeping track of "every other day" as I'm very busy this time of year. Trying to figure out a balanced diet for older females and not overfeed is tough. One really needs to shed, and is still not showing any signs of starting, so trying to figure out how to encourage that through diet… and the turtles are just no help. They can’t tell me anything about how I’m doing at meeting their nutritional needs.

Keeping lots of clean water is relatively strait forward in my opinion, at least I know what needs to be done. With feeding, I'm just hoping I am getting it right and I stress over that.

I'd have to say for me it's not remember to feed sometimes, if I had to pick a close second I would have to go with filter cleaning even though right now I'm using a hang on tank filter since all I have for Niko right now is a 20g tank. With any luck though I should be able to use some of my tax refund to get Nikos permanent 60L x 18W x 24H tank this year. Working on that last though sicne I wana get all the other stuff first.

I have 17 turtles so there is a list of daily chores but I don't mind any of them, cleaning is fine, feeding is fun. My biggest worry is health problems because if someone gets sick it has to be noticed and treated early on or anyone in the same tank can get it! Currently I have 1 RES with an RI that I have to give injections to and one turtle has an eye infection that I have to give eye drops too.