General Care Discussion :: housing smaller turtle with large turtle

[hiddenpassions]

My bigger res is about 9 inches in shell length and i believe she is female. I have her in a 125g long aquarium right now. I got a much younger turtle a few months ago who is growing pretty quickly. I think it's a little over 2 inches in shell length now. I am wondering how big the smaller res needs to be before i put it in the same tank with the larger one. I was thinking 3-4 inches?

Also i am wondering are there any types of fish i can put in the aquarium that my larger res won't attempt to eat?

Peace,
Cherry

[Listen97]

if they have never been together i wouldn't suggest it. turtles are solitary and will attack each other.

[untsmurf]

For the fish, there isn't any specific species that turtles don't go after. With most people it's hit or miss. My RES doesn't seem to care for blandly colored fish. He'll eat brightly colored fish ASAP but he'll leave the dull ones alone for months. That being said, he always eats all of them eventually.

Because your tank is actually quite large you might have some success in introducing your turtles. I would wait until the smaller turtle is able to be sexed so that you know what you're dealing with. Once that time comes there are more things you can do to reduce the chance of tank aggression:
-take the larger turtle out and redecorate/rearrange the tank then introduce both turtles to the "new" tank at opposite ends. This way neither turtle feels ownership of the new surroundings
-densely populate the tank with plants (fake or real) this will provide each turtle with a sense of privacy
-feed them separately to avoid food aggression

All that being said, it's not a guarantee

[steve]

Once the smaller RES is about 4", you should know if you're dealing with a female or male. It's worth trying to keep females together, but if it turns out to be a male, then I wouldn't probably be worth it.