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I need to know if my 2 turtles shells are growing right can any tell me how to post pictures on to here?

To answer the question in the title, yes the shell has to be smooth. If it is not, then that means they have a start of pyramiding. Pyramiding is caused by overfeeding your turtles.

To learn how to post a picture read this sticky:

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1811

It's ideal for their shell to be smooth, but 90% of the times, it is not.
RES kept in captivity "indoors" will always have a carapace that's a bit bumpy due to artificial lighting.While RES kept outdoors or seen in the wild, will have a perfectly smooth carapace almost like painted turtles.

My Rio Grande baby turtle is not smooth. It looks and feels healthy, but it is not smooth at all. And I don't over feed him.

How come Snapping Turtles dont have smooth shells?

Well, pictures of Snappers that I've seen seem to just be that their natural shape is different from the more swimmy type of turtles. It doesn't need to be very aquadynamic because they don't really swim, and when they do they don't really swim fast. So for them, they can have big ridges & pointy things on their carrapace bc it doesn't affect their ability to hunt or escape predators.

As to what benefits this could give to a snapper & why they occured, no idea. But it's not a DIS-advantage to them so no reason for it to be smooth like a slider.

SINI5T3R wrote:How come Snapping Turtles dont have smooth shells?

Are you looking at common snapping turtles? They have really nice smooth shells too.

Painteds4life wrote:

SINI5T3R wrote:How come Snapping Turtles dont have smooth shells?

Are you looking at common snapping turtles? They have really nice smooth shells too.

do they? all ive seen is ones with huge poke's comin off of them all. and yes i want a common.

SINI5T3R wrote:

Painteds4life wrote:

SINI5T3R wrote:How come Snapping Turtles dont have smooth shells?

Are you looking at common snapping turtles? They have really nice smooth shells too.

do they? all ive seen is ones with huge poke's comin off of them all. and yes i want a common.

Those are hatchlings/juvenile commons, or alligator snappers.
As they grow, common snapper shell will smooth a lot, but they keep the 3 ridges going down their carapace.

Heres one i took of a snapping turtle and baby. You can tell its shell is pretty darn smooth. As smooth as any res.

Painteds4life wrote:

Heres one i took of a snapping turtle and baby. You can tell its shell is pretty darn smooth. As smooth as any res.

Thats a BIG one! and yeah thanks for that, it looks pretty