General Care Discussion :: Male keeps biting female's feet in aggressive mating attempt

[djkc]

Hello, just signed up here but have been pulling info from the forums for a little while now. We have two adult red eared sliders, one female around 8 inches and one male around 5 inches. The male keeps being overly aggressive with his mating behavior. At first he was just constantly harassing her with his front feet whenever we fed them, vibrating them in her face to try to get her to mate. In the last week or so he has started randomly biting her feet and holding on. They both sink like rocks to the bottom of the tank and sit there until either he (presumably) gives up if we're not there to catch him or until we separate them if we are there. This afternoon he bit her hard enough that afterwards she was favoring that foot for several minutes. Any help/suggestions? The only thing we could find online suggested lowering the tank temperature to discourage mating behavior. We were also looking to get a tank separator to split it in two to keep them apart, but the store closed before we could pick one up. Not sure if they would stand up to the abuse they can give stuff.

For some background:
The two of them are in a 55 gallon tank with an XP3 filter. We got the male about 4 months ago from a friend who had gotten him from another friend. He had been passed along several times and had spent all ~10 years of his life in a 20 long without a basking lamp. A month or so after we got him and had time to look up more info about them, we went to buy a larger tank and at the same time fell in love with an older female (age unknown, but she is rather large and looks very old) with injured back feet (she is missing one of her toes on each of her back feet, we had to patch her up when we first got her) that they had in the store. When we first put them in the new tank together they were fine. Then after about 3-4 weeks she started acting funny, which we found was because she had been pregnant when we got her. We had to separate them for about a month (with him sleeping on the couch in his old 20 long) until she finally laid all of the eggs. Shortly after we put them back in the main tank together, he began to indicate that he would like to mate with her. Constantly. Especially whenever we fed them. Over the last week it has gotten worse and worse, to the point that we are worried that he'll actually hurt her.

[Bascomb]

I would suggest a larger tank. You have 13 inches of turtles in a 55 gallon. You will need a much larger tank. Over crowding well cause some problems with behavior.

[Zepher30]

Again, I dont agree with the 1 inch of shell - 10 gallon rule. Stupid, stupid rule IMO...

However, if you're going to put in a divider, your 55 becomes two 22.5 tanks, which is probably too small.

I would suggest either getting a bigger tank with a divider, or another 55-ish gallon for the other turtle. keeping them together could be bad.

[untsmurf]

Actually, the rule is 1 inch of shell=10 gallons. Some people with multiple turtles go by 10 gal/1 in for the first turtle + 5 gal/1 in of every additional turtle. And everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but RES are very aggressive turtles, especially regarding their food and their territory. Providing more space has been shown to reduce aggression which is why we recommend using that rule as a minimum suggestion.

As per your case, djkc, it sounds like your male isn't going to give up. Once you've reached this state, one of two things usually happen: 1. the male persists until the female kills him or 2. the male persists until he kills the female. To stop the food aggression, you should feed them separately. You can use the 20 gallon as a feeding tank. Just put some water from the 55 into the 20 and place one turtle in the 20 during feeding time. This will ensure that everyone eats in peace. And I agree with your decision to divide the tank asap. Keep your tank divided until you can get a larger tank (research stock tanks, tractorsupply.com sells a 150 gallon for $124.99). Once you have the larger tank, you can try and reintroduce them, but watch them carefully. If the male persists, you'll need to keep them separate for life.

[Zepher30]

That was a typo on my part, I meant to put 1 inch of shell = 10 gal of water

lol :\

[djkc]

They eat together fine - just sometimes, especially when we feed them lettuce it seems, he keeps trying to mate with her. Otherwise there is no aggression between them while eating. His random bitings aren't close to the food attempts. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

And for an update, he seems to have finally annoyed her enough that she's not just ignoring his advances. The last time he tried to stroke her face she bit his claw on purpose, causing him to run away.

Some quick pictures of them to give a better idea of their size/the setup. I may be estimating things wrong.

[untsmurf]

The tank is too small for two turtles that size. Also, that top is filtering out the majority of beneficial UV rays.

Since it has escalated you need to separate them. Definitely start feeding them in separate tanks/bowls though to stop the food aggression.

[djkc]

Hmm, what sort of top is better then? I had seen that the solid glass ones were bad, hadn't realized that the ventilated ones had problems too.

We're aware the tank is too small, don't have money at the moment for a larger one though. The only other tank we have is the 20 long that we were given him in, which failing finding a better solution he is going to be spending time in again until we can get something bigger.

My fault for the confusion with how I phrased my first post, the aggression isn't really food centered. If we drop in pellets or crickets or live fish they both eat fine and ignore each other. If we put in greens he doesn't have much interest in them, and spends the time vibrating his feet/claws in her face while she's trying to eat. Randomly throughout the day he will do the bite->sink trick. And today he added to his repertoire by climbing on to her while she's trying to bask and attempting to mate. She responds by dumping him in the water.

[shedreamsinred]

Somebody posted a great picture in the ABTA "Post Your Basking Pictures" thread where they had two tanks linked by a basking area because they had some problems with turtle aggression. Maybe you could rig something like that? Then they would be able to get space from one another when they're having a dispute.

[untsmurf]

In cases of aggression, you don't want to allow the turtles to have access to one another at any time. They won't just stay in their separate tanks if they have the option to battle it out.

The screen tops filter out light, you need to get something like a wire mesh where the gaps are decent sized. Egg crate works wonderfully and is cheap and can be found in your local hardware store.

If it's just him pestering her during the greens, you can remove him when you offer them so she can eat in peace.

[Spike 7.62]

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26663

-Spike

[steve]

They only have 4 nails on their hind feet, so that might be what you are seeing. When I kept my male+female together, aggressive attempts became flat out aggression. Now he's just aggressive when he's near her, he'll immediately try to bite her, even on dry land (grass).

[happycamper]

Can't you put the large turtle in the 55 and the smaller one in the 20 long?