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Hi,

I've two RES both female (99% sure) at least 15 years with one about a couple of inches smaller than the other. Over the last couple of weeks I've noticed the larger one snapping at the smaller one who is bobbing around with everything tucked in although unharmed.

I'm in Scotland and until this year I never bothered with a heater and just relied on the air temperature in the house to keep the water warm. The only difference that I'm aware of is that I felt kind of sorry for them during the cold winter last year so bought a heater to keep the water temperature stable. After a quick search of the net I had it set to 24C, could this be too warm for my girls? Should I turn the temperature back a bit to see if the big one stops snapping, after all 24C is quite a bit warmer than we usually have in summer, never mind winter.

Any information is appreciated,

Floydster

hm...thats actually a good water temp. i'm not sure if that's the problem. how long have they been living together?

This usually happens with RES's. Most of them like to be alone, and if they are in a tank with a mate as they get older alot of times the bigger one becomes more dominate then the smaller ones. The temperature of the tank likely has nothing to do with it, it's just something that naturally progresses. If the larger turtle continues to bully the smaller one your going to end up having to separate them.

AllTheCandies wrote:hm...thats actually a good water temp. i'm not sure if that's the problem. how long have they been living together?

They've been living together for 15 years, it's only since the heater has gone in that there's been any aggression. Could it be that they've been too cold and sluggish to be bothered about dominance?

Floydster

actually that might be it

Well whatever it is, it is going to come down to separation if it progresses. If you see it happen anymore then you will have to separate them before one is injured.

The Tank Size is prob starting to bother them tho i dont know why it would just happen out of no where. Maybe Mating? Not all too sure.

If you want them to get along better you can go to your local walmart and get one of them 600 gal pools (the plastic ones for kids) and set it in your back yard and just put some bricks in it. Iv got one set up and its so much room for them they dont even bother with eachother half the time.

Turtles, just like humans, get mad at each other. No one gets along perfectly. My cats have spitting fights occasionally but I don't separate them. Hurricane and Typhoon have shared a tank the entire time we've had them, and, they've had moments when they'd been a little uppity with each other, but I also know them well enough to know they'd never harm each other on purpose. Sometimes they just space from each other. And, oddly enough, the larger of the two, is not the dominant one in the tank

Your turtles might need more space, might need to be fed separately, or it could have to do with shedding. My turtles are not the only turtles who will peel off each others' shedding skin, I've heard of other people's turtles doing this too.

My advice would be to watch them closely, and, only separate if they get too aggressive with each other.

theartbook35 wrote:Hurricane and Typhoon have shared a tank the entire time we've had them, and, they've had moments when they'd been a little uppity with each other, but I also know them well enough to know they'd never harm each other on purpose. Sometimes they just space from each other
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My advice would be to watch them closely, and, only separate if they get too aggressive with each other.

The snapping is always going on over the same spot so I was wondering if there was maybe a piece of food that had become lodged under a stone which was maybe being guarded. Anyway, I removed all the stones and did a partial change to clean up what little debris there was then dropped the heater temperature to 20C which is what they're more used to to see if it made a difference.

After a few days I've noticed that they're definitely snapping less. However, being able to watch them for most of the day I have noticed that the snapping always takes place in the hour before the light in the tank goes off. Think I'll maybe turn it off sooner as it's on from midday until 11pm.

Floydster